


The Bonny Bunch of Roses

by halsinator



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Dream Sex, F/M, Gardens & Gardening, Ghost Sex, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:36:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4898782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halsinator/pseuds/halsinator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Maria Absalom revisits Segundus's dreams and strikes up a bit of something. Well, more than a bit of something. Meanwhile, cakes are consumed, cows are displaced, and Segundus masters the art of magical gardening. Also: Childermass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a prompt on the kinkmeme.
> 
> Title is (INAPPROPRIATELY) from the Napoleonic folk song.

The first dream was tame, or in retrospect seemed so. In it, Segundus was working in the garden at Starecross. This seemed perfectly reasonable, as at about this time he spent a great deal of his waking hours working in the garden at Starecross. He was attempting to render it fruitful before the spring was over, a process which involved far more subtle negotiations than he had ever expected. In this new age of magic, it was not enough to cut back the brambles; he was required to convince the brambles that they did not wish to overgrow the garden. Brambles, however, are very tenacious things, and the impassioned speech he delivered to them upon the subject had accomplished very little— aside from providing John Childermass, who had been visiting, with a chance to laugh at him.

"You must be stern with them," Childermass had said, leaning lazily out of the kitchen window. "It is very much like managing children. Or cats."

Segundus, who had been hot and tired and sticky and sunburnt, had directed a short, exhausted glare at him.

Childermass had smirked and withdrawn to the kitchen, where— as Segundus was shortly to discover— he had been polishing off the last of the Stilton and the good port.

In addition to his ongoing dispute with the brambles, there was the matter of petitioning the apple tree to blossom, and pleading with the rosemary not to overtake the purslane, and begging the asphodel and cloudberries to prosper. He had had no success to speak of with the roses yet; they appeared altogether indifferent to human communication. Segundus though it was likely that some ancient contretemps was behind this, but any record of such had likely been lost with Hurtfew. He had resorted to trying to charm them by leaving them little gifts; however, he was unsure what sort of object a rosebush might value. So far he had attempted glass beads, and blackberry preserves, and a rather clumsy sonnet, in addition to a number of sleek feathers from his pet raven, Archibald Unsig. The roses seemed entirely unimpressed with his efforts, though he seemed to inadvertently have encouraged the growth of some highly enthusiastic weeds.

All of this is to say that the garden occupied a significant amount of his attention. So when he found himself, in the dream, digging a hole beside a delicate carpet of thyme, he was not very surprised by it. Indeed it did not occur to him for some time that he was dreaming. He was aware that the air had a peculiar feeling to it— a feeling that reminded him of first frost on the moors, light and crisp and crackling under his feet— and that someone somewhere nearby was singing. No— humming. No— there was no sound to it, but all the same he had the sensation of hearing music. Still, this did not strike him as overly strange. He wiped his brow and stared down at the hole he was digging. He could not quite recall why he was digging it. Was he planting a bulb? Was he searching for treasure? Was he exhuming a body? Had he misplaced something priceless in the earth, something that it was now important he recover? All of these seemed equally likely to have prompted his actions.

He sighed, and turned to the woman who was standing beside him. It was Maria Absalom, of course, clad in a very fine gown the colour of sea-foam, which was really not very suited to standing around in gardens. "I do not suppose you know why I am digging?" Segundus asked her politely.

Miss Absalom smiled at him. "You will make sense of it sooner or later," she said. Her voice was warm and reassuring. "Perhaps you could leave off for a little while. We could share some cake and wine."

Segundus accepted the hand she offered him and stood, awkwardly brushing earth off of his breeches. He felt ashamed of appearing so shabby before Miss Absalom, who was extremely beautiful and very glamourous. "Thank you," he said. "Only—" He frowned. "I fear I have nothing to offer a lady. I did have a lovely Madeira cake, but Mr Childermass has been to visit. Do you know Mr Childermass? When he goes, I inevitably find my kitchen plundered. He does this because he knows it vexes me."

"I am familiar with Mr Childermass," Miss Absalom said with a laugh. "But I have my own house, you know."

Her laugh had had the extraordinary effect of making Segundus feel suddenly comfortable in her presence. He forgot that he was dirty, or that he was flushed from the sun, or that his shirt-cuffs were rolled above his wrists. He smiled rather foolishly at her, feeling a surge of affection. "Of course, I had quite forgotten your house," he said. "The Shadow House! How could I have forgotten? Oh, I would love to see it!"

"Let us go, then," Miss Absalom said. "We shall share something much nicer than Madeira cake, and my best wine as well, and in no time at all I will have you back at your digging."

This sounded very agreeable to Segundus, and he said so. "Thank you," he added a little shyly, "for the invitation."

He had only just begun to follow Miss Absalom towards the house— for of course the garden belonged to her house, the Shadow House— when he became very distracted by a sound like a loud heartbeat, which resolved itself quickly into a hard sharp knock. The knocker, whoever he was, sounded impatient. But Segundus could not imagine where the door was. He paused and gazed up at the sky, feeling woozy and irritated, wishing that he could simply ignore the sound. He saw a brief flash of Miss Absalom's disappointed face as she turned towards him, and perceived with sudden clarity that he was in a dream. _It was such a nice dream, too_ , he thought wistfully, as he sank into wakefulness.

The garden, the house, and Miss Absalom vanished, and he was blinking hazily in his own bed. Someone was knocking loudly on the door of Starecross Hall. He had not dreamt that part.

Segundus sighed, and arose, and dressed, and went downstairs.

There were few magicians in the village of Starecross, which was located a good distance from the city of York, on the edge of the moorland. Mr Honeyfoot dwelled there, having moved his family from York in preparation for the opening of the magic school, but he was such a genial and generally harmless person that the village residents seemed hardly to regard him as a magician at all. Instead, when they encountered a problem that required a magical solution, they inevitably brought it to Starecross Hall. Such problems might be as practical in nature as a sheep gone astray— "Could you see fit to find him?" the farmer had asked, leading Segundus to spend twelve exhausting hours first summoning a vision of this particular sheep (which proved challenging as the sheep did not have a name, and could be described only as "the sheep with the lopsided left ear who last summer ate Mrs Hounslow's prize rosebush") and then tracking the sheep down astride the farmer's overweight pony, clutching his silver basin precariously— or as delicate as the case of two beekeepers who had registered a complain against some fairies who had been stealing, or perhaps rustling, their bees. (Segundus had spent two days trying to coax the last petulant bees out of the parlour after summoning the fairies for an impromptu negotiation at Starecross. He did not think he would ever wish to eat honey again.)

Three times a week a villager knocked on his door and requested some small act of magical aid. Segundus could not deny them, as he very much hoped to be regarded as a pillar of the local community, but the requests did take up a great deal of his time.

"Mr Bowskill," he said wearily upon opening the door. "Do not tell me you have encountered another magic ring."

Mr Bowskill, a local miller, had fished a trout of the River Rye and found it to contain a small ring made of silver. Upon donning this ring, he discovered that he could command any object to turn itself into a fish. This was not a terribly useful power, and had caused a fair amount of chaos, as he had turned six beech trees, a dog, his wife, and a wheelbarrow into fish before begging Segundus for help. Segundus had restored the unhappy aquates to their original forms, and had opted to confiscate the ring— telling Mr Bowskill sternly that he had mishandled it in an abominable manner. Oh, how Segundus hoped that Mr Bowskill had not encountered another magic ring.

"Nay," said Mr Bowskill. He clutched his hat, eyeing Segundus with fearful respect. "Only there is a fairy bird in my garden, and it will not come out of the rowan tree!"

Three hours later, Segundus had banished the bird back to Faerie. It had been chicken-sized and chicken-shaped, very fat, but covered all over in iridescent green feathers and prone to spitting ha'penny coins. It had pecked Segundus rather savagely in the course of its capture, and shouted Latin prophecies at him in a tone of indignation until he said desperately, "Please go back to Faerie; you will not enjoy it here at all; you will find it very dull and commonplace!" After some consideration, the bird seemed to agree with this prediction, and half-hopped, half-flapped its way back down the nearest fairy road. Mr Bowskill was most thankful, having been unnerved by the prophesying, though— he said rather regretfully— he would not have minded the ha'penny coins.

When Segundus returned to Starecross, dusty and tired and bleeding from several fingers, he found that he was no longer the hall's sole occupant. Childermass's large and bad-tempered stallion, Brewer, was grazing indifferently upon the cockspur, and the man himself was eating wild strawberries in the kitchen, with his muddy boots propped up on the table-edge.

Segundus stood in the doorway, gazing dolefully at him. "Those were my strawberries," he said. "I picked them myself."

"You are adjusting to country life very well, I perceive," Childermass said. He popped another strawberry into his mouth.

Segundus took the platter away from him and cradled it protectively. "Why are you here?" he asked. "Why are your boots on my table?"

Childermass glanced at his boots, as though surprised to find that they were indeed on Segundus's table. Having confirmed this startling fact, he failed to remove them. "I was in York," he said, "I wished to pay a visit. A man may pay a visit."

"No," Segundus said, shaking his head. "No; you do not pay visits. You infiltrate. You insinuate yourself. You invade."

"Do I," Childermass said. He seemed very interested in this observation, and perhaps a little pleased by it. "Which am I doing today? I do not think I feel robust enough for an invasion."

"Yet here you are pillaging my larder, quite like Buonaparte."

"I do not wholly disapprove of Buonaparte. He had a few decent ideas." Childermass paused. He had the grace to look slightly guilty. "In point of fact, I had thought to look in your library for a moment."

"Did you indeed," Segundus said. He scowled at Childermass over the strawberry platter. "I am not your librarian, sir! I do not exist for your convenience!"

"My inconvenience, often," Childermass said. "But we are both magicians, you know, so we share a common purpose."

"I see no sign of it." Segundus turned away, meaning to remove the strawberries from the kitchen and Childermass's reach. "Very well, you may use the library. But perhaps you might consider some form of repayment."

Childermass hmmed absently. He was lighting his pipe. "I shall take the suggestion under advisement," he said. "By the by, I shall be spending the night as well."

Segundus made an inarticulate noise of frustration, and carried the strawberries away.

* * *

That night, Segundus dreamt again that he was digging the hole in the garden. He did not seem to have made very much progress on it. It was perhaps six inches deep, and he was shoveling at it with a teaspoon. He stared at the teaspoon in surprise. It seemed an odd choice for such a task. But he thought he had better keep on with what he was doing, so he shrugged and kept digging. It was oddly meditative, as an activity. The sun was warm upon his shoulders. He could hear little sparrows singing in the trees, and insects humming and chirping in the bushes. He whistled cheerfully and a bird whistled back at him. He smiled, and tossed a spoonful of dirt over his shoulder.

"Oh, not this digging again," Miss Absalom complained. "You said you would have cake with me!"

Segundus squinted at her. "Did I?" he asked, uncertain. Then he recalled. "I did! I am most sorry! How very impolite I was."

"Well, I forgive you," said Miss Absalom. "Only let us go, if we may, and remedy the error."

So she escorted him into the Shadow House. She was not wearing such a complicated garment as before; she had donned a simple muslin dress that seemed much more suited to summer gardening. It had very charming ivory and blue stripes, which brought out the merry blue colour of her eyes, and a low back that revealed the pale freckled slope of her shoulders, which Segundus thought a little risque. He did not mind contemplating the pale freckled slope of her shoulders— not at all. But he flushed hotly when he caught himself doing such a thing.

The Shadow House was very cool and dark and cluttered. It was filled with vines and dust and odd broken objects: shards of pottery and glass amongst the roots of trees, and rotted-away lace tangled amidst branches. Segundus could hear the flutter of birds' wings. He thought he saw a fox crouching beneath a spider-webbed chaise-longue.

"I apologize for the mess," Miss Absalom said, "but I set out quite deliberately to ruin it. For all ruined buildings, you know, belong to the Raven King. You will find that the kitchen is somewhat neater."

And indeed the kitchen was drenched in lemon-coloured sunlight, and smelt nicely of champagne and herbal tea. It contained a very clean whitewood table. Segundus sat at it as Miss Absalom rooted in the pantry.

"Hmm," she said. "Let's see; let's see. I've an almond cake glazed with an essence of summer rainstorms, which I fancy you might enjoy very much. Or a cherry pie cooked on the first warmth... oh, and you must try some of this champagne! It is made from grapes grown in John Uskglass's vineyard, on the slopes beside his summer palace in the land of Agrace. No one now living in England has tasted such a vintage."

It was indeed very fine champagne— or Segundus supposed so, for he did not have much experience to draw from. It was light as air and very sweet, and made him feel as though he were bubbling over with laughter. He had half a glass, and a little of the almond cake, which did indeed taste very strongly of summer rainstorms, in a way that was surprisingly nice and made him feel wonderfully daring. In this frame of mind, he asked Miss Absalom to tell him about the house. "Do you not find it very inconvenient to live in a ruin? And do you not grow lonely in such a place?"

Miss Absalom laughed. "Not at all! I have the most wonderful company! There are foxes and mice and birds, and all kinds of spirits, and now and then the king himself comes to visit, since it is his domain now!"

"Does he!" Segundus said, fascinated. "Whatever is he like?"

"Oh, he is not like one thing or the other. He is a little bit like everything. Sometimes he is a little bit like you!"

"Surely that cannot be true."

"I thought so when I first saw you. You had such a marvelous expression. Or do I mean marveling? I wanted to kiss it off your face."

Segundus flushed even more hotly than he had whilst gazing at her shoulders.

"Do you find me terribly shocking?" Miss Absalom asked. An impish smile was playing about her lips.

"I—" Segundus hedged. In truth, he found it difficult not to gaze at her mouth. She had a very small full mouth, like a half-opened rose set amidst her milkmaid complexion. He was convinced that kissing her would be like laughter in a late summer twilight: drowsy and playful and delicious, with just a slice of heat. He very much wanted to kiss her. But it was entirely out of the question. It would not be proper at all. Not even in a dream.

But Miss Absalom was leaning close to him, with her fiery hair around her shoulders, smelling of roses and lemons and pale sweet perfumes, and touching his face with a soft cool hand. "Do you not wish to kiss me?" she murmured. "You do; you're trembling. What a lovely creature you are."

She laid a finger on his lips. Segundus closed his eyes and exhaled hard. "I cannot," he said with difficulty. "We cannot."

"Mm." That finger traced his lips. "Perhaps you cannot. But I would like to kiss you breathless. You do have the most darling lips. Let me have you, just for a moment. No one will ever know."

It was impossible to resist such blandishment as this, and in another instant Segundus had surrendered. He had been right, he discovered, about the summer twilight, and yet he also had never been kissed as filthily as this: slowly and deliberately and a little bit wetly, in almost a teasing fashion. Miss Absalom sucked at his lower lip, and touched just the tip of her tongue into his mouth, so that he had to stifle a small gasp when he felt her probe delicately with it. He felt that he was in comparison a clumsy kisser. He had not kissed many women, though he had put significant effort into learning the skill. (He was studious about everything he did.) Still, he cupped his hand to her lower back and felt her press eagerly forwards, coming into his arms so he could feel the peaks of her breasts.

That made him feel quite hot, yet at the same time ashamed. Her nipples were quite distinct against his chest, and he imagined taking one in his mouth, toying at it, stroking a hand down the skin of her pale soft waist... And below, dipping into the hot wet well of her with just the shallowest fingertip...

He broke away abruptly. "I am so sorry!" he blurted. "Forgive me! I should not be—"

Miss Absalom looked a little exasperated. She was very out of breath. "It is a dream," she pointed out. "There is no question of propriety. If it does not please you, that is one matter, for I certainly wish to please you— I wish to please you a great deal, in a variety of configurations, quite possibly on the floor of this very room, because I have a fancy to see your face in the utmost throes of pleasure, and hear you cry out and beg me for release—"

"—Oh, God—" Segundus whimpered. He did not think he had ever whimpered before, but he recognized the quality of it in his voice.

"—so if it does not please you, I shall leave off entirely. But if it is only that you fear some trivial social consequence, I may assure you—"

Segundus surged forwards and claimed her lips. He was agonizingly aroused, and he pressed her back against the wall, feeling her laugh softly against him in what sounded like delight. She hooked a small ankle around his leg and drew him even closer, scraping her short nails through his hair and down his neck.

"Oh," he said helplessly, and: "oh," and frotted gently against her. She crooked her knee so he could thrust against her leg, and he dropped his head against her creamy, perfect shoulder, inhaling the scent of her and bringing a hand up to cup her breast.

"Yes, _please_ ," she said, as he touched his thumb to her nipple. "Have you ever been with a woman, John Segundus?"

"I— yes," he managed. "But hardly— hardly— and it has been years—"

"Well," said Miss Absalom, "we shall have to renew your education. Let us begin with how much nicer that feels with the clothing off." And she proceeded to divest herself of her simple muslin gown in a few short movements, flinging it carelessly across the room to land atop a chair-back.

She was naked underneath, and quite perfect. Segundus drowned for a moment in the sight of her rounded breasts with their sharp nipples, the slope of her waist, and the patch of ginger hair below it, descending delicately to a point between the happy curves of her thighs. He felt weak at the knees. But he reached out his hand once more, and repeated his careful touch of her breast. He rubbed his thumb against her flushed nipple, and heard her exhale softly. The sound made his hips flinch. He wanted her to make many more such sounds. So he bent his head and licked one nipple, then the other, then nuzzled more lastingly at each one. Her hands threaded themselves in his hair and held onto his head.

"That is very nice," she said. "Shall we get you out of your clothing as well?"

Segundus tried to mimic the boldness of her actions in casting off his waistcoat and his shirt, but he feared he seemed quite nervous and shy. Certainly as he was unbuttoning his trousers, his hands shook, and there was no dignified way for a gentleman to take off his stockings. So he blushed a little, feeling awkward, and was ashamed at the obviousness of his physical desire— his prick was jutting out stiffly, and it was wet at the tip.

But Miss Absalom smiled at him with that same easy, comfortable, desirous smile, and reached out to drawn him close to her again, and set her hand straightaway upon that cock, which made him gasp and kiss messily at her collar and neck.

"Oh," he whispered, overwhelmed, as he glimpsed her slim hand upon him, one of her beautiful fingers sliding slowly and filthily over the slick head, so that he bucked forwards.

She looked up at him somewhat mischievously through her eyelashes. "I believe I said something about the floor of this room," she said, and proceeded to push him down: first onto his knees, then flat on his back upon the floor. Dazed, he watched her straddle him, opening her thighs wide in a devastatingly provocative fashion. He trailed his hands up the insides of them and touched the soft curls that sheltered her intimate parts.

"Please me. I wish you to please me," Miss Absalom told him.

"You will have to teach me." But already he was engaged in exploration, stroking a fingertip where she was wet, noting how she gasped and rode herself against him. He pushed that fingertip in a little ways and was left breathless by her tight hot grip. He pushed in further, still stroking her gently with his thumb.

"Yes," she said. "There, harder, like that— do you like me? Do you imagine yourself inside me, there, where I am hot for you and wet?"

Segundus made a thoroughly unintelligible sound. His other hand grabbed hard at her hip, and he thrust up frantically against her buttocks. "Oh please," he gasped out. "Please, if— if that would please you—"

"It would please me very much," she said rather imperiously. "But not yet. You are very beautiful doing exactly as you are doing."

So Segundus redoubled his efforts, working his now-slippery fingers into and against her, pushing at the hard nub of her pleasure again and again, briefly arching upwards to worshipfully kiss her breasts before she pressed him down once more. She was not tentative about expressing her enjoyment; she moaned and ground down against him and said "Yes, yes, just there— oh God yes, faster, put your fingers inside me!" When she climaxed, though, she fell rapturously silent and stiffened all over, throwing her head back in a perfect ecstatic pose. Segundus stared at her wild-eyed, thinking he would die of desire.

Fortunately, she soon returned to moving lazily upon his fingers, though she was gasping heavily for breath. She looked at him with heavy-lidded eyes and said, "Shall I give you what you want now? Would you like to enter me?"

It took Segundus a moment to be able to offer a coherent "Yes, please, please!"

She lifted herself up a little ways and sank in a very leisurely fashion onto his prick. Segundus cried out and jerked wildly, because the sensation was simply overwhelming— the most perfect embrace imaginable, the hottest and wettest grasp around him. She simply lingered there for a moment, moving in slow, torturous circles, before beginning to very shallowly ride him.

"Oh, that is lovely," she said. "You feel delicious inside me." She raised herself up until the barest inch of him was inside her and slowly, slowly descended again— causing him to arch and thrust up frantically at her, trying to get _more_ and _deeper_. "How frantic you are to chase your pleasure. We shall have to work on that. Though you are very appealing, I admit, when you are frantic..." She smiled reassuringly at him, as though to take away any sting of disapproval.

Then she began to work herself more steadily on him, a hard and solid rhythm that made nonsense of Segundus's thoughts. He was reduced to the ability to thrust up and up again, driving himself into her, each time a shock of joy. After a little time she took his hand and moved it against her, and he began to stroke at her again, and felt her whole body tighten slightly. Then he realized that he could feel himself sliding in and out of her— feel the firm slick length of his prick taking her again and again— and he had to shut his eyes and think of anything else at all in order to avoid his finish.

He thought he must have made a distracted job of that work, for he could think of little other than the rapture building under his skin, but nevertheless he rubbed fiercely at her. She sped her motions, and closed her own eyes, clenching a little around his prick. "Oh, yes!" she said. She pressed his hand hard against her so she could rut fast and ferociously against his fingertips, and in a very short time she was shouting and then going silent as she climaxed— tightly, astoundingly— around his prick.

Segundus said something, but he had no idea what it was. He could not imagine what to say to such a thing. He gaped at her in a kind of astounded wonderment, watching all the motions of her pleasure— the bend of her neck, her bowed back, her muscles straining— and feeling that hot clench within him. Then he was hanging onto her hips and driving into her very hard, very sloppily, with one singular purpose, which he found as he shot his seed inside her, straining up, making high little wounded noises that he thought certainly should have embarrassed him.

At the time they did not embarrass him, because he was beyond the capacity to be embarrassed. He was in a place of such extreme physical delight that it took him a good few moments to recall even that he was possessed of a body, or what he might be meant to do with such a thing. After he came to this recollection, he realized that he was drenched in sweat and trembling slightly, and that Miss Absalom was lifting herself off of him.

She sighed heavily, and lay down beside him on the floor. "Well, that was quite as nice as I expected it to be," she said. She sounded enormously satisfied. "You are a treasure. How fortunate I am to have found you."

Segundus gazed at her a little uncertainly. "So that was— I mean to say, my lack of skill—"

Miss Absalom waved a careless hand. "You need not worry about _that_. You are an apt learner, and your enthusiasm is charming." The way she say charming made it sound as though she meant something quite dirty by it. "I shall look forward to taking you as my pupil as many times as you desire."

Segundus's breath caught, and he licked his lips. "Oh," he managed. "I should— I should like that extremely. I mean to say that you are— beautiful, so beautiful, I have never known a woman like you, a woman whom I enjoyed touching so much, in fact—" He was aware that he was babbling. "I should very much like to kiss you again, if that is permissible."

It was. He did. It was a soft, tender kiss that was quite nice for all that it was chaste. He stroked her hair and gazed at her, feeling foolishly happy. There was something about her that brought out the feeling in him. He had been quite wrong to ever think of her as grand or remote; she was very warm and down-to-earth and full of laughter. In fact there was a slight gap between her front teeth, which seemed to him to emblematize all of these qualities in a mysterious way that he could not quite express. It was beautiful but imperfect, and ordinary, and hers, and Segundus thought that though she was a great sorceress, she was more familiar than many village girls he had known.

"Although," he said aloud somewhat sleepily, "I must talk to you of magic, for I very much wish to know all your thoughts on it. I am sure you are possessed of a deal of lost knowledge. Just imagine what-all I shall learn! I only wish I had more to offer."

Miss Absalom kissed his forehead with great affection. "Oh, dear. Don't be silly. Go back to sleep. We shall see each other again soon, and then we shall talk of magic and all manner of things."

Segundus frowned at her, a little confused, for he had an idea that something about this sentence was not quite logical. But he was very worn-out and comfortable, and already drifting to sleep, and in no time at all the dream had faded around him. For it had been a dream, of course it had been a dream; how could he not have noticed?

 _Oh,_ he thought regretfully. _But I so wished to see her again! How unfair!_ He had been entirely charmed by her.

But, of course, real life was not filled with glamourous enchantresses who wished to teach shy, shabby magicians how to please them. No matter how extraordinary his life might have become, it was not that extraordinary! So upon waking in his empty bed, Segundus set himself to dismissing the dream. It would do no good to dwell on it. And— as was brought home to him vigorously when he descended to the kitchen and discovered Childermass spooning sugar into his tea and eating toast with Segundus's best blackberry jam— real life had more than enough challenges to offer. Too many, he was coming to believe, in fact.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the course of the following week, Segundus accomplished a great deal. He reshelved all of the books that Childermass had made use of, it being Childermass's habit to remove a great many books from the shelves and leave them stacked across the floor in mysterious configurations that possibly functioned as defensive stockades. Then he reshelved all of the books again, after Childermass complained that he had not yet been finished and removed them into even more convoluted stacks. He convinced a patch of hair-grass that it did not wish to grow in the Starecross garden, and spent a very long time explaining to the rosemary bush that it could not grow any further, for it risked putting its neighbour in shade. The rosemary had a prickly temperament, which made this a delicate matter, and was rather arrogant as well, but in the end Segundus appealed to its sense of mercy.

"You are such a very grand plant," he told it, folding his arms around his knees and leaning earnestly close. "You must consider those who do not stand so high. The creeping thyme lives close to the ground, and it cannot contest you! It is quite dependent upon you to be kind to it."

The rosemary rustled imperiously. But it liked being so flattered, and conceded that it would grow no further this summer, though it reserved the right to do so next year.

Childermass, who was leaning against the garden gate and smoking his pipe, said, "You'll spoil them if you keep that up. Catering to their egos in such a fashion."

"It certainly does not astonish me that you would say so," said Segundus, looking up from the rosemary. "However, I am astonished that you are so replete with gardening advice, when you never seem to do any gardening."

Childermass shrugged. "What were you planning for dinner?" he asked.

"Your visit seems to be stretching on for a very long time," Segundus said.

But he grudgingly got to his feet and went into the kitchen, where he had half of a very nice venison pie and some wild cloudberries which would go nicely in a tea-cake. As he was baking the tea-cake, Childermass stole half the cloudberries, in spite of being whacked sharply several times on the hand.

"You are incorrigible," Segundus said. "You are like a child. You are worse than a child."

Childermass appeared not very much bothered by this. "Children are clever," he said. "They take what they want."

"But they do not get what they might have had, which is cloudberry tea cake," Segundus said. "I am going to give you the slice that has the fewest berries in it."

"Why do you not cater to _my_ ego?" said Childermass, disgruntled.

"Because you are not a plant," Segundus said.

Childermass offered that he might become a plant if it meant that Segundus would stop nagging, and stop reshelving books before he, Childermass, was done with them. It was, surprisingly, one of the nicest conversations that Segundus had ever enjoyed with Childermass— though this was not saying much, and he suspected that he was greatly influenced by his general satisfaction after the dream about Miss Absalom.

Shortly thereafter, a boy from the village came to say that there was a drunken magician in the pub, and could Mr Segundus come and remove him please, before he frightened any more cows. Segundus and Childermass both immediately assumed the man in question to be Vinculus, who was more or less a magician and almost always drunk, but it rapidly transpired that Vinculus was asleep in the Starecross garden, entangled in an extraordinary number of vines and brambles. The drunken magician in the pub, on the other hand, was demanding cider and issuing challenges to the livestock of the village, inviting them to participate in magical combat.

When Childermass and Segundus arrived, the magician also issued a challenge to Childermass, opining that he was unfit to be the Reader of the King's Book, and also that in general the process was undemocratic. "Why shouldn't I," slurred the man, "have a look at the King's Letters? I've as much a claim as any man!" It was unclear what role the livestock played in this particular resentment. Nevertheless, he had behaved very badly towards them— alarming several sheep and a herd of cattle with his shouting— and his slurs against Childermass could not be allowed to stand.

"Shall you call him out?" Segundus asked Childermass, gazing at the man very dubiously.

Childermass gave him a sarcastic look. "I am not a gentleman."

"Shall I call him out for you? To defend your honour?"

"Nor am I a maiden," Childermass said. "Though I am very intrigued by the idea of you calling anyone out. What would you duel him with? A crocus? A tea cosy?"

Segundus felt a little stung by this. "I do not see anyone else leaping to defend your honour," he pointed out stiffly. "Perhaps you would do well not to scorn the offers you get."

Indeed, the villagers of Starecross seemed quite content to leave the magicians to it, having ascertained that no magical combat with livestock was likely to occur. They had dispersed, leaving the road outside the pub empty but for the drunken magician, Childermass, and Segundus. The drunken magician was finding it difficult to stand upright.

"You have cursed me, sir!" he said to Childermass. "How dare you! I insist that you remove this curse at once!"

Childermass cast his eyes skyward and sighed. "Run along home," he said to Segundus. "I shall see the gentleman safely to an inn."

Segundus said, indignant, "I see no reason why I ought to _run along home!_  This is my village, sir, and it was not your aid that was requested! I am aware that you think very little of me; however, the people of Starecross have a higher opinion! I will not simply fob off their concerns—"

At this point, the drunken magician vomited onto the cobbles. This caused a variety of untidy weeds to sprout from between the cobblestones and give off an alcoholic odour. It was rather an interesting display of magic, Segundus thought, though he doubted it would be appreciated as such by whoever had to clean the street.

Childermass pinched the bridge of his nose. "One quarrelsome magician," he said, "I can handle. Two risk testing my patience. Run along, and we may discuss the matter in the morning."

This did not significantly improve Segundus's temper. He had called Childermass a child, but now Childermass was treating _him_ like a child— a badly-behaved child who was beneath his attention. Segundus disliked being condescended to in such a fashion. It was the sort of treatment that most rankled him, for he had been subjected to it most of his life. He had no intention of letting Childermass get away with it.

"Very well," he said. "Very well. I shall _run along_ , as you put it. But since I am of so little use to you, and you so scorn my presence, I trust that you will not be lingering at my home. It would be very inconsistent for you to do so."

He searched Childermass's face for a reaction to this, but Childermass was, as usual, quite unreadable. So Segundus turned and marched towards Starecross feeling very dissatisfied.

"He is intolerable!" he told Miss Absalom later. "He acts as though I am the most ignorant of fellows! He constantly mocks my work in the garden; he continually belittles me, merely because I cannot make the rosebushes bloom, or the brambles behave as I will; and yet at the same time he abuses my library and takes liberties with my food!"

Miss Absalom looked extremely amused by this tirade. "Men are peculiar creatures," she said. "I daresay you yourself are quite as difficult, when you set your mind to be. As for the rosebushes; it is the simplest thing— they have no confidence. You must flatter them sweetly before they will flower. They are so very diffident, you see."

"Oh!" Segundus said, surprised. "I had not thought of that!" Then he realized for the first time that he was in Miss Absalom's kitchen, sitting in the late sunlight, drinking a golden kind of wine that tasted like laziness and lovemaking and heavy wildflowers in sleepy groves that hummed with bees. He set his glass down carefully. "Forgive me!" he said. "This was not at all how I meant to greet you!"

Miss Absalom tilted her head and said teasingly, "How did you mean to greet me?"

Segundus answered by leaning across the table and kissing her passionately. She tasted a little of the wine they were drinking, which is to say: very sweet. He moved his tongue in her mouth in a slow, concentrated fashion. When at last, out of breath, he pulled a little away, he said, "I feel I could kiss you forever, and never grow tired of it. I wish to kiss every part of your body; it is all I have thought of—"

She gave a gasping little laugh, and took hold of his neckcloth to pull him towards her and into her lap. "How bold you have turned!" she said. "I find it very exciting. I should like you to kiss every part of me. You have a clever mouth and a clever tongue; let us put them to work—"

Segundus was already kissing ravenously at her throat, his hands sliding down her body to caress her and trace the outline of her breasts. It was true what he had said; he had thought of her a great deal. He was not normally a man much given to sexual excitement, but the concrete memory of her soft, willing body— the pleasure that she had taken from him— her warm laugh and the heat of her clenched around him— had proved irresistible.

"I touched myself," he said breathlessly against a constellations of freckles, "thinking of you, I could not help myself—"

"Oh," Miss Absalom said, taking hold of one of his hands and slipping it inside her bodice, so he could touch the bare skin of her breast. "Yes, I like that very much. Tell me what you imagined. Being inside me?"

"Yes," Segundus said, "yes, and— pleasing you, feeling you all around me—" He blushed ferociously at having said this, and to hide it, lowered his mouth to her nipple. By licking very delicately at it, he could make her squirm, and he devoted a great deal of attention to achieving this effect, until she put a hand in his hair and pulled him back.

"Every part of me," she said. "Will you? I am wet for you. I want you on your knees."

As much as this rendered Segundus even further red, for he had never known a woman to say such things, it also stole his ability of speech. He gaped at her for a moment, and then fumbled in his haste to slide to the floor, hiking up the light cloth of her dress and pressing his mouth to the inside of her thigh. He wanted to touch every inch of her skin, which was so bare and so fragrant and so enticing. He kissed her thigh in a long, confused, shaky line, spreading her legs wide as he did so. She leaned back in her chair, tilting her hips up. She had told the truth: she was very wet. Segundus parted the lips of her and gazed at her in fascination before lowering his head to tentatively lick. The taste and texture of her were strange and exciting; when he probed at her with the tip of his tongue, he could feel her tense, and her hand came down to clutch at his hair. This was even more exciting, and he pushed his tongue in: lapping at her folds, at the stiff little organ that made her jerk and gasp and beg. He could not resist pushing a finger in her, and feeling the deep well of her, so wet, where he would push his prick— where he would fill her with himself—

The thought made him moan against her, which she seemed to enjoy. He licked at her more fervently, learning the map of her pleasure so he could leverage it against her: employing that knowledge, merciless, to drive her quite wild and nonsensical, till she was crying out and tightening and dragging his head against her, holding him there firmly, saying, "Yes, yes, yes!" And then her climax.

He leant back, wiping his mouth, breathless. He stared at her. She had shucked her dress over her head, and was dappled red as though with sunburn, sweat curling tendrils of hair to her neck, and he had never desired someone more. He wanted to do it to her all over again, to make her make those sounds, to feel her hands clutch at his head, and to feel the quiver of her most sensitive flesh where it was subject to his tongue, leaving her quite helpless.

He rested his hot face against her thigh and touched her lightly as she recovered, slipping two of his fingertips just inside her, just enough to feel her wetness. She made little noises at this, but they were noises of delight, so he pushed the whole fingers in and she took them eagerly, riding lightly against them. He had to push a hand against his prick at this, for it was painfully hard and her eagerness made it jump.

"I want to," he said dazedly, "can I, again, I want to— give you your pleasure..."

"Oh," she said in a low dark voice. "Yes, yes, only— I do not know if I am able."

"You are," Segundus said rather boldly, and he thrust his fingers sharply in before bending his head and giving her the full intensity of his tongue: the broad flat of it in heavy licks, and the sharp edge in delicate patterns. He was aware of her crying out almost ceaselessly above him. For a time he had mercy and immersed himself in licking his way inside her, beside his fingers, as though he were fucking her slowly with his tongue, emerging occasionally to tease her into noisiness once more. At last she grew very desperate and began begging him for it, tugging at fistfuls of his hair, so he gave himself over to evoking her pleasure. He felt he was dragging it out from under her skin, pulling all her nerves into a point of high tension. He scraped his teeth against her and felt her thrash, and then he was giving her the hard fast tonguing that sped her towards her climax. She seemed to hover at the edge of it for a very long time— her body bowed, straining, quivering all against him— and then he could feel the instant of it under his hands. It was extraordinary, watching her give herself to it. He had never given another person so much pleasure.

"You are astounding," he told her, kissing her thighs, her belly; lifting his head to kiss her breasts. "Astounding, wonderful, please let me, please—"

He was half-lifting her out of the chair, and she half-stumbled into his arms with a great deal of laughter, and then she was unbuttoning his breeches hastily, pulling him out, and lying back upon the floorboards, so he could enter her and fuck her frantically. She was so wet and so hot, and welcomed him into her; after a moment, she lifted her legs up to his shoulders, which changed the angle of his thrusting in a way that was intensely delightful. He was shuddering already, so overcome by the intensity of being inside her. At one point she clenched very hard around him and let him push his way against her, and he had to clench his eyes shut and cry out. She seemed to enjoy this effect.

"Beautiful," she murmured. "Yes, take your pleasure, give yourself to it." She put a hand against his overheated cheek, which was cool and welcome.

"Oh, God," he choked out, desperate, and thrust wildly forwards, and climaxed very violently.

It took all of the strength out of him. He could do nothing afterwards except lie limply upon her, breathing wetly, feeling as though someone had wrung him out like a cloth.

Miss Absalom stroked his back. She remarked, "It astonishes me that you have no other lover. I think you are the most delightful lover I have ever had. You have so much zeal for the act. It is very charming."

"Mm," Segundus said. He felt very warm and contented, and was happy to be petted, but he was not quite up to conversation yet.

She laughed at him, and pushed his hair back from his face. "Truly. And I have had my share of lovers. Are you as talented at magic as you are at pleasure?"

Segundus groaned. He hid his head at her shoulder. "I am quite hopeless. I fear you would abandon me entirely if you saw me perform magic."

"I doubt that very much."

"I am the humblest of scholars. I fear I am artless."

"But you have love," Miss Absalom said. "With love, a great many things are possible, you know. You may find your artfulness yet."

And she kissed him very tenderly, and began to tell him a long story that she claimed had been told to her by the ghost of Ralph Stokesey. It involved a young girl who wished to ask the Raven King a favour, and who undertook a great many trials to win this right. Segundus kept interrupting her to ask questions, but Miss Absalom never seemed to mind. Indeed, she had the scholar's delight at digressions. The unfortunate consequence of this, however, was that by the time she came to end of the story, Segundus was so very sleepy that he could not keep it straight in his head. He did not think that she had reached the conclusion by the time he drifted away into weightlessness.

* * *

The next morning, he awoke feeling drowsy and satisfied. He lay in bed for a long time, contemplating the dream. It had not really felt like a dream, and Miss Absalom had remembered him. She had called him her lover. She was not a figment, in the manner of dreams. He had not ever really thought she was, only— it seemed very presumptuous, at the same time, to imagine that she was anything but. Jonathan Strange might have gone about summoning enchantresses up at a whim, but John Segundus was far more meek. He could not think how he might merit Maria Absalom's time, however great his zeal might be... though a small, painful part of him wanted very much to have this power, to win her attention through being extraordinary. She was so very beautiful, and rather rambunctious, unabashed in her pleasure, and every time she looked at him he felt as though the sun itself had turned and singled him out directly.

Oh, he thought: what a quandary. She was real and yet unreal. He wanted her to be real, and did not believe she could be, yet he only disbelieved she could be because he thought her real! It was quite impossible! But still, he found himself so generally pleased that he was all smiles as he dressed in his bedroom. He even whistled a small phrase of music, which was not very like him. The alteration wrought by his dreams was astonishing.

Upon descending the stairs, he found that the house was oddly silent. This, of course, was because Childermass had left. Childermass had left because Segundus had asked him to leave. His absence could surely be counted a success. Yet there was no denying that without him Starecross felt very empty. Presumably this would change when the school opened in the autumn; then the house would be very busy indeed. But for now he was the sole creature rattling about it. He thought somewhat dolefully that he would be quite pleased for his housekeeper to arrive the next day, or for someone from the village to seek magical assistance, for at least this would afford him some companionship.

To distract himself, he took his morning cup of tea into the garden, and sat cross-legged beside the rosebushes. It was a very fine Yorkshire day. A little damp, but not rainy: with only a refreshing hint of rain in the air. The smell of the garden was a riot of herbs, a tangled and almost medicinal scent. Segundus spied a snail making its way over a stone. "You will refrain from eating my plants, sir," he instructed it with a frown.

Then he turned his attention to the rosebushes. "Hello," he said. "I fear we have got off on the wrong foot. You must think me very demanding. It is only that I wish to enjoy your splendid flowers! I am also starting a school, and I believe it would benefit the students greatly to be surrounded by beauty. You could be part of that. In a way, you could be said to teach them. It is a very noble undertaking, I think. I should be honoured if you would join me in it."

He waited, but there was no sign of response from the rosebushes. He sighed, and thought that he at least had made the effort, and went back into the house to finish his tea.

To his surprise, when he returned the next day, he found that every rosebush was now in half-blossom: dense with buds that had begun to unfold. He counted several colours amongst them: a deep dark red, a pale and lightweight creamy pink, an ivory shade, and a yellow-peach pink. Each was wonderfully charming in its own right, and Segundus made sure to compliment the bushes individually. Miss Absalom had been correct, or at least her advice had been sound— he wondered if he ought to consider this a mark in favour of her existence as more than a simple figment of dreams. He could not quite reach a conclusion.

Though he was pleased about the roses, by the time the week drew to a close he had begun to feel rather bored. No one from Starecross village had arranged to encounter a magical problem— which was not to say that Segundus wished the villagers to be beset by magical problems, and indeed he had sometimes lamented how often they seemed to be so troubled, especially on those occasions when it interrupted his research— but it was the only context in which he seemed able to befriend them!

"I suppose I am not a socially graceful man," he said to Miss Absalom one afternoon, resting whilst in the midst of digging the hole in the garden. "I do not share a great many interests with other people, assuming they are not interested in magic. They wish to talk of farming, or the weather, or— if they are gentlemen— of politics, and business, and such."

Miss Absalom was lounging upon a calico picnic cloth, sipping pink wine from a champagne coupe. Beside her was a silver tea-tray bearing an array of iced cakes. She did not seem at all concerned that the ants would get into them. "I have always suffered from much the same trouble," she said. "Well! And it is very much worse if one is a woman. It is all frocks and servants and men. I am quite happy to talk of frocks and servants and men, but to talk of nothing else! It becomes very wearying, especially when one would rather talk of magic."

"Mm," Segundus said, to indicate his agreement. "I suppose I assumed, when magic returned to England, that it would alter matters. But society proceeds much as it did. Even many magicians prefer to talk of business. I cannot comprehend it!"

"Can you not?" Miss Absalom asked, amused. "Magicians are only men and women, after all. Chiefly men."

Segundus sighed. "It is enough to make me wish I had not sent Mr Childermass away. Extraordinarily irritating he may be, but at least he is not dull. I am most eager to see his reaction when he hears I have conquered the roses, and without a jot of his aid!" This reminded him that he had not, in fact, informed Miss Absalom that he had conquered the roses. He did so now, describing their various pleasing colours. "You were quite right," he said; "they only needed their confidence built up."

"Of course I was right," Miss Absalom said. "Half of being a magician is the diplomacy of wild things. And I was a very great magician in my day."

"You still are, I suspect," Segundus said. He frowned. "That is to say, if we are in any particular day. Are we? I can never decide if I am dreaming when I am with you."

"You are dreaming," Miss Absalom said. "But that does not mean it is not real." She sipped her wine and smiled enigmatically.

"So you are real," Segundus said uncertainly. "You are not simply a fantasy of mine."

At that, Miss Absalom gave a full-throated laugh. "How flattering!" she said. "No; I am not your fantasy, though it is sweet of you to make such an accusation. Do I really please you so much?"

"Oh, yes," Segundus said. He abandoned his digging and clambered over to where she sat. "I think you are the most pleasing person I have ever encountered!"

Miss Absalom looked very satisfied by this answer. She beckoned him closer and lifted the glass of wine to his lips. "Drink," she said. "This is a very fine vintage from the year that John Uskglass quarreled with winter, and the grapes ripened for four full summers."

Segundus tasted the wine. It was like green apples and clean linen, gold wheat and crushed berries and days of sunshine. He gazed at Miss Absalom over the brim of the glass. She was watching him with a lazy expression of want. She tipped the glass forwards and he drank again. A droplet of wine spilled past his lips. She set the glass aside and leaned forwards to capture it: tracing its path with the tip of her tongue.

Segundus found himself very short of breath. When she pulled away he chased her mouth with his own, and they met in a slow, hot kiss. Segundus was surprised to find after a few long, delicious moments that what he chiefly wanted was to continue that kiss. It was so nice to be sitting with her there in the sunlight, tasting the faint trace of wine on her lips, with one of her hands combing through his hair. He said rather shyly, "May I kiss you for a while?"

"I would like that very much," Miss Absalom said.

She drew him down beside her on the calico picnic cloth, and they kissed for a very long time like that: Segundus smoothing his hand along the white slope of her shoulder— at one point touching all the little marks of freckles that he found, for he was very fond of all her freckles— and stroked her copper-coloured hair, which gleamed in the sun.

"It seems most unfair," he said, "that you should be so lovely and so kind and so gifted. You are like a cup that is constantly running over."

Miss Absalom screwed up her nose at this idea. "That sounds rather messy," she said with a laugh. "Though perhaps I should say— if I am a cup, then you should drink from me!"

And in the end, after a great more heated kissing, drink from her he did: pushing her skirts above her waist to sink his head between her legs, practicing meticulously the art of bringing her to her climax. Scarcely had he finished than she was climbing forwards, pushing him flat onto his back, and taking him into her small warm hand.

"I want to taste you," she murmured. "Would you like that? For me to take my time, tasting you all over, taking your pleasure from you inch by inch?"

Segundus gasped out something that approximated a yes. She undressed him slowly, pausing as she removed articles of clothing to kiss the most startling places: his nipples, which was astonishingly pleasurable and made him arch up towards her, and his elbows and wrists, and the soft skin over his ribs, and his hipbones, and— after removing his stockings with a great deal of amusement— the bones of his ankles, which was oddly erotic. She was very thorough. He had never been kissed so thoroughly before. By the time she settled herself between his legs, he was very erect. She did not do as he had expected, though, or as he had understood the act to be practiced, but rather began by licking every part of him thoroughly. She applied the broad flat of her tongue to his prick, which made him gasp and pant, and then to the soft skin of his scrotum, which made him writhe, and then dipping lower licked daringly at another place entirely. This caused him to rake his hand through the grass, for he had never imagined that such a thing might be so exciting. But the longer she lingered there, the more exciting it became, and by the time she penetrated him with a firm, deliberate finger while mouthing wetly at his scrotum again, he was quite ready to climax on the spot.

But Miss Absalom did not permit him this. She paused in her efforts and looked up at his moan, smiling crookedly at him. "You are so hasty," she said. "Rushing towards the final pages. You must learn to enjoy where you are in the book."

This was such a delightfully scholarly metaphor that it made Segundus moan again. But she forced him to enjoy the point where he was a great deal more, moving her finger inside him slowly, making him feel as though his whole body were throwing sparks like a lightning storm, and licking his prick in little, gentle tongue-strokes that quickly became almost tortuous.

"Oh," she said, "you are very beautiful like this, wild with your desire for release. Look at you." Indeed, she was gazing at him with fascination, touching herself with one hand. "I should make you satisfy me again before I let you have it. Would you like that?"

Segundus had to bite his lip from uttering an obscenity. He nodded his head frantically.

So with one last hard thrust of her finger and a long, wet kiss to the head of his prick, she crawled up his body and settled herself at his shoulders. She had shed her frock by this time, and was fully naked— gloriously, exquisitely, mouth-wateringly naked. There was something very imperious about the way that she spread her legs and lowered herself onto his mouth so that he could press his tongue against her. He did so fervently, parting the lips of her with his fingers working his tongue fervently where it excited her the most. At the same time she ground herself down against him, panting with the intensity of her pleasure, almost as though she were fucking his mouth. He kept making little helpless noises against her, noises that expressed how overwhelmed he was by arousal. He thought he might finish just from this, he was so desperate for it— and the sounds she made, and the wet heat of her quivering at his tongue-tip— but he did not, and when she had stiffened and said in a drugged voice, "Oh, yes— just a little more, a little more—" and climaxed shortly thereafter, she moved to take him once more with her mouth. This time she did not hold back, but applied herself with fervour, and almost immediately— feeling dazed and intoxicated— he spent.

Afterwards, they lay side by side upon the picnic cloth, naked and comfortable.

Segundus said, "You seem a scholar of the art of love as much as that of magic."

"They are surprisingly similar," Miss Absalom said. "As I told you: a form of diplomacy. You are gifted in both, I think. One must either want happiness for other creatures or to subdue them. Sometimes both. The former is your quality. Perhaps next time I see you, we will work on spellwork. If I can keep my hands off you."

Segundus quite liked the idea that she could not keep her hands off him. He had never before had this effect. He wriggled closer to her and laid his head upon her shoulder. He felt a great surge of contentment. He entirely forgot that he had been lonely, or that he was in fact asleep in Starecross in his bed, and instead breathed in the fragrance of her warm body, enjoying the sense of being wanted.


	3. Chapter 3

Over the next few days, Segundus thought a great deal about what Miss Absalom had said to him— about magic as a form of diplomacy. He was familiar with the many ways in which magicians made petitions to various persons, and naturally he knew of the Raven King's many contracts with the earth and sky of England, but he had never before thought of English magic in quite this way. He supposed he had not thought of himself as having the authority to negotiate with England, or with any of its component parts— even so much as a rosebush or bramble. He was, after all, no Raven King. He did not have anything to offer England, apart from an occasional poorly-composed sonnet or jar of blackberry jam. Even Archibald Unsig the raven seemed at times unconvinced of Segundus's mastery. He eyed Segundus as though considering that perhaps he ought to be the owner, and Segundus ought to be the pet in the cage.

Yet Miss Absalom obviously felt he held a negotiating position. Miss Absalom had been very encouraging to him, and he was inclined to think she did not dissemble. So Segundus began to consider how he might go about negotiation. It was quite plain to him that Childermass's method of intimidation and sternness would not suit him well. The snail, for instance, which he had very strictly admonished not to consume his garden, had now made its home amongst the rhubarb plants.

Segundus sighed heavily when he saw this. He crouched down close to the snail. "Sir," he said, "this is most inconvenient. I shall have to remove you from the garden if you cannot restrict yourself to the weeds. I am very fond of rhubarb. I plan to make a cake with it."

He became aware that he had the snail's attention, and that in some sense he had the rhubarb's attention as well.

"Perhaps you could feast upon the hair-grass," he suggested to the snail. "I have no particular use for it, and it keeps sending up patches where I would not have them grow. Would that do?"

The snail considered that it would, so long as Segundus would not exercise his raven in the garden. The presence of the raven was why there were not more snails.

"That seems reasonable," Segundus said. "Yes; I think it will do very well. And if I see any more weeds, I shall inform you of their location."

The rhubarb was very pleased with Segundus's bargain. It did not mind being eaten; it viewed itself as something in the nature of a collective being made up of a unity of many generations of rhubarb. It wished for Segundus to ensure the life of its future generations through careful and sympathetic replanting, which snails did not regard, being limited creatures. Therefore the rhubarb viewed Segundus as its benefactor, and would henceforth put special effort into its ripening.

Segundus left the garden feeling that this had been a very successful encounter, and also that possibly the rhubarb regarded it as its king, or at the very least a feudal lord and overseer, which did not really suit his principles— he being far more inclined to a constitutional system— but which he supposed he could manage. He did not know if what he had done was precisely magic, but he found that he was satisfied by it.

That evening, as he was enjoying a light supper that his housekeeper had left for him (a portion of jugged hare and some very nice bread, which, however, left him thinking rather longingly of Miss Absalom's iced cakes), he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

It was the same boy from the village who had come to inform Segundus about the drunken magician. This time, he had come to inform Segundus about an angered water spirit. Segundus asked him, "What is your name?"

"Jeremy, sir," said the boy. "Jeremy Hopper. They always send me on account of I am not afraid of you."

"Afraid of me?" Segundus asked in astonishment, in the act of putting on his coat. "Surely you mean afraid of the other magician. My colleague, Mr Childermass."

"Oh, no, sir," said Jeremy Hopper. "We have known Mr Childermass this year and more! He would not hurt a soul! He is all powder and no shot, as my father would say."

As they hurried off, Segundus reflected on this astounding description of Childermass. He had cause to be aware that Childermass was certainly not all powder and no shot; Childermass was enough of a shot to have once occasioned someone to shoot him, and to have caused dear meek Mr Honeyfoot to have strongly considered it. It was true that Childermass was also a great deal of powder (a significant amount of this powder tended to be visible under his fingernails), but shot there certainly was. Segundus, on the other hand, was neither shot nor powder. So why on earth would someone be afraid of him?

"Because you are silent and remote and fix your mind upon the cosmic matters," said Jeremy Hopper. "You are always thinking about them. The cosmic matters. So you might at any moment quarrel with the dark or cause a lightning storm in the village."

"I might certainly not!" Segundus said, taken aback. "That would be most unlike me!"

Jeremy Hopper looked a little disappointed by this answer. "You might cause the river to be filled with horrible sea monsters," he suggested.

"I do not know of any horrible sea monsters," Segundus said, "and if I did, I certainly should not wish them to fill the river! Why should I? The logic of these theories seems very thin!"

There was a long pause as they crossed the market square of the village. "You might become enraged," Jeremy Hopper said. He sounded rather sulky. "You might work yourself into a magical tempest."

"I am sorry to disappoint you," Segundus said. "Truly. But such an event is very unlikely to occur. I am the most even-tempered of fellows! If anyone, it is Mr Childermass who might work himself into a magical tempest; he—"

He stopped because they had arrived at the little mill pond where Jeremy Hopper claimed the angered water spirit to be. The sun was setting behind a far ridge, casting mauve light and blue shadows across the placid scene. There was no sign of the water spirit as such; however, as soon as they had left the road the sound of birdsong had ceased, which made the tableau an eerie one. Indeed, there was no sound at all: not the wind rustling in the bushes, not the hum of dragonflies, not crickets calling to one another in the bushes. There was only the water lapping in the mill pond. Segundus felt very uneasy about this indeed.

"What is it that the water spirit _did_?" he asked Jeremy Hopper. He supposed he ought to have asked this to begin with. He had assumed the water spirit was more-or-less simply splashing about in an angry fashion.

Jeremy Hopper's eyes lit up. "It stole three cows!" he said. "Just sucked them up in a sort of waterspout! Do you suppose it crunched their bones for bread?"

"You are a very gruesome young man," Segundus told him severely. "We must hope it has not. I shall try to speak to it and see what it wants."

He approached the mill pond. "Excuse me, sir!" he called out towards it. "My name is John Segundus. I am the local magician. I have come to discover why you have stolen these good people's cows! Perhaps you did not realize that such an act is most improper?"

The water lapped sullenly against the shoreline. Segundus had a sense that he was being attended to, however reluctantly. But there was no response.

He tried again. "I often find," he said, "that I am more amenable to conversation when I have a nice cup of tea. Would you like a cup of tea? Perhaps some cake? I have a very nice cloudberry cake back at my home."

There was a pause. Water seeped up under Segundus's shoes. He had a strong sense of a sulky voice telling him that if he were a magician, he would know that was improper to negotiate after sundown, certainly far more improper than it had been for the voice to steal the cows, which anyway he had not stolen, but removed at their own— that is, the cows'— request, for their lives were very dull, and they grew tired of being milked every day, and they wished to visit the Other Lands.

Segundus lifted his feet up gingerly, attempting to preserve them from the water. "I am sorry to have made such an inappropriate suggestion, in that case. Perhaps I might return tomorrow, in the morning, and at that hour bring you some tea and cake, and then we might chat?"

The water spirit grudgingly admitted that this was possible. It withdrew into its little pond, leaving Segundus's shoes sodden and smelling of moss.

So the next morning, Segundus bumbled his way back down to the mill pond, with a wide hat on and a large hamper carried on his arm. It was raining, a light warm summer mist, and the ground beneath his shoes was soggy and wet. It was not his idea of preferable picnic weather. But he supposed that a water spirit might have different standards. Perhaps the damp day and drizzle would have made it better-tempered. But if a river spirit thought a damp day was the finest weather, would it still enjoy a cup of tea? Segundus pondered this rather profound question.

Jeremy Hopper, though his presence was not required, had chosen to observe the proceedings from the branch of a nearby apple tree, where he sat swinging his legs and eating small green apples that Segundus suspected did not belong to him.

Segundus spread a chequered cloth upon the damp ground and produced a china teapot. He had cast a spell upon it to keep it hot, and another so the china would not be chipped. He had also brought china cups and saucers, and little china plates for the cake, and silver forks. He felt a bit silly laying out the tea things at the edge of the pond, with rain speckling his coat-sleeves, but he was determined not to allow this to affect his behaviour.

"Now, then," he said to the water spirit. "Do you take any sugar?"

The water spirit took two lumps of sugar. It did seem somewhat appeased by the damp weather, or perhaps by Segundus's cloudberry cake. As Segundus sipped his tea, it complained at length about its life. It was dreadfully bored. No one ever spoke to it except the cows and the geese, and occasionally a few tadpoles that turned into frogs. The earth spoke, but it did not speak the same language, and the sky— well, whoever got any sense out of skies? In the old days, there had been magicians everywhere, traveling here and there on John Uskglass's business, or getting themselves into trouble, or needing favours. But now they all stayed in York or Leeds or London! No one ever needed favours anymore. The water spirit had been very happy to send the cows to the Other Lands, because they had asked him so politely, and it had been nice to be needed again.

"I see," Segundus said, listening sympathetically and folding his arms around his knees. "Well, I cannot say that you have done wrongly. I find it very difficult myself, being the only magician in the locality. It can be a dull business, and no mistaking. But, you know, the cows were not really free to do as they wished. The farmer has put a great deal of work into their upkeep! He has fed them and cared for them! You can see why he is a little put out."

The river spirit admitted that perhaps it could see. But, it said petulantly, it was the farmer's own fault for failing to entertain the cows!

"The farmer did not know," Segundus explained. "He is not like you or I. I shall explain to him, and then perhaps he may tell the cows stories, or sing the cows songs, or send them on holidays." He did not really look forward to this conversation, as he could imagine the look on a Yorkshire farmer's face when a magician explained to him that his cows required holidays, but he was willing to undertake it.

—Oh, very well, the river spirit surrendered with a certain amount of bad humour. It felt, however, that if it did this, Segundus would owe it a favour.

Segundus _hmm_ ed thoughtfully. "I do not suppose," he said, "that you might be interested in a relocation?"

A short while later there was a great disturbance in the water, very like a water spout, and a noise of unhappy mooing emanated from the mill pond. Three large dappled cows hurtled through the air and landed gently upon the pond's bank, where they lashed their tails and gazed balefully at Segundus.

Jeremy Hopper said, "You've got Old Jack's cows back! They wasn't all horribly gnashed up!"

Segundus sighed and experienced a strong urge to bury his face in his hands. He turned towards the mill pond. "All right," he said. "Come along, then."

A little wave of water splashed itself meekly into the teapot. Segundus put the lid on the pot and loaded it back into the hamper, accompanied by the chinaware, the forks, and the chequered cloth.

"What a day it has been!" he announced to no one in particular. Then, clapping his hat onto his head, he was off— leaving Jeremy Hopper to inspect the cows dubiously, prodding them with a suspicious finger, as though he would not at all have been surprised to discover they were sea monsters after all.

* * *

The water spirit settled very happily into a small pond on the left side of the garden. Segundus laboured for most of that day till the pond was dug and he had laid a flat bed of stones for its base. Then he poured out the water from the teapot, and felt a very peculiar rush as the water spirit went with it. In a short time he had filled the rest of the pond as well, and it was bubbling contentedly as the snail investigated it.

That evening, as Segundus enjoyed a small glass of sherry and read a new magical journal that had just arrived from London— the journal endorsed making use of the principles of natural science to investigate and classify English magic; Segundus rather wondered what its editors would make of the water spirit, or indeed of cows wishing to go on holiday— he was startled to hear the unmistakable sound of a horse approaching in the lane.

Frowning and wondering if the village had experienced further magical trouble, Segundus left his comfortable dining room and went to the gate. He was astonished to see that the horse he had heard was Brewer, and that Childermass was astride him.

"Mr Segundus," said Chidermass forbiddingly.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Segundus asked rather rudely.

"I heard there was trouble hereabouts," Childermass said. "I thought it best that I keep my eye on it."

"Well, there is no need for that," Segundus said. "I have resolved it already."

This seemed to give Childermass pause. "Have you now," he said at length.

"It may surprise you to learn that I have some small skill at magic, and also that I have other skills, many of them unknown to you, sir— many of them skills which you yourself are lacking!"

This gave Childermass even further pause. He peered at Segundus closely, looking very suspicious. "There is something different about you," he said. "What have you been up to?"

Segundus said, "I have been resolving magical problems, with a good deal of success. I have convinced the rosebushes to bloom, and instituted a number of reforms to my garden, and I have fed your slice of the cloudberry cake to a water spirit. He lives in the little pond to your right. He is a more congenial conversationalist than you have ever been."

"No; that is not it." Childermass frowned at Segundus some more. "Are you not going to invite me in?"

Segundus crossed his arms over his chest. "Why should I?"

"Because I have ridden a very long way."

For a moment, Segundus tried to summon up the strength to refuse him. He thought indignantly: no one asked him to ride a very long way! He did not bother to send word! It is his own fault if he sleeps in a field! But he was not the sort of man who could be so firm-hearted. He sighed heavily. "All right," he said. "You may come in. But I am not offering you any sherry!"

Childermass's mouth quirked in amusement, but he said nothing.

Once Brewer was in the stable, and Childermass had settled by the fire with a glass of sherry in his hand— "I have ridden a very long way," he had repeated, gazing with a certain profundity of sorrow at the sherry bottle, and Segundus had said, bad-tempered, "Oh, very well! But there will be absolutely no cake!"— Segundus discovered that in addition to his unpleasant demeanour and his dreadful habits, Childermass had brought a large number of magical magazines with him, including several from Edinburgh which Segundus had not known existed. The two of them therefore passed a very pleasant night reading quietly and drinking, occasionally offering observations on topics of mutual interest. With Childermass, there was no need to offer pleasantries, since he himself did not observe the art, and Segundus found this quite comfortable. From time to time, he caught Childermass staring at him a little fixedly, as though trying to perceive some unexpected dimension of him, but Childermass said nothing further on the topic of Segundus's apparent alteration.

Only, just before they both retired to bed, Childermass said, "I believe you are happy." His tone was one of accusation and displeasure.

Segundus considered this statement. "I cannot say for certain," he said at last. "I suppose I am."

In his dream that night, he was already naked, stretched out upon a rather sumptuous bed, which had wine-coloured sheets and more pillows than he thought were strictly necessary. He was thinking of Miss Absalom— how filthily she kissed him, how her long ginger hair tumbled down her back as she rode his prick, taking it inside her, letting him pierce her where she was hot and wet and tight— the loud cries she made whenever he pleased her, and how very demanding she could become, pressing herself down against him, greedy with desire... Before he knew it, he had taken himself in hand, and his breath was coming fast as he pleasured himself.

Then Miss Absalom, also naked, was crawling into the bed, giggling at his guilty look. "Oh, do not stop. Do not stop," she said, and gently placed his hand back on his prick. She did not remove her own hand, but guided him to continue touching himself in slow strokes. "Were you thinking about me?"

"Yes," he said fervently. "About— about being inside you. Pleasing you, while I—"

"Mm," she said, her eyes heavy-lidded. "While you fucked me. Is that what you were going to say?"

Segundus could feel himself flush, but he also felt his prick jump. He knew that Miss Absalom felt it as well, for she laughed low and delightedly. "Is that what you would like?" she asked him. She still had not moved her hand.

"Yes," he said, hoarse, gazing up at her.

"Then come and take me," she said, releasing him and lying back in a seductive pose. Against the dark red sheets of the bed, her skin looked especially soft and creamy, her body like something from a Botticelli painting, though it had also a quality of the English rose to it.

Segundus stared at her, breathing hard, his mouth dropping open. Then he was crawling towards her, frantic with desire, and draping himself against her, and pushing into her with his prick. It was so good— so good, to be tangled in that double embrace, the hot wet grip of her body around his prick, and the close sweet tangle of her limbs around his body as he pressed her back against the bed. She did not lie still, but instead was in constant motion: her hips rocking forwards to him so that on each stroke he was pushed as deep into her body as it was possible for him to go; her hands moving ceaselessly against his chest, his shoulders, his back, stroking in almost an inquisitive manner, as though investigating all the parts of him; even her toes trailed up and down his legs, the feeling of which had an odd power to arouse him. He, for his part, could not stop himself trying to kiss her, even as the coordination required to do so became so difficult that he was reduced to mouthing shakily at her jawline and neck.

He could have finished quickly, but he did not wish to. He wished to savour every slide of his prick inside her, the way her eyelashes fluttered when he pushed very deep, the short cries she uttered, the disarray of her hair like a cloud of copper silk floss around her head. He had to stop and move slowly, closing his eyes, pushing in very carefully, one stroke at a time. But this made her impatient, and she pulled him flush up against her, then pushed him forcefully over so that she was now astride him.

This robbed him of his breath. For she then kissed him passionately and immediately began to ride him, rolling her hips while keeping him pressed inside her, working him according to her own pleasure. She grew increasingly vocal, moreso when she reached her hand down to pleasure herself. "Oh," she moaned, sliding sharply up and down him, "yes, you feel perfect, so deep inside me..."

Segundus reached his hands up to touch her breasts, half to pleasure her, and half because he could not resist them. He loved the feel of her nipples hard between his fingers, the small swell of each breast under his hand. But his touch did pleasure her, and in a very short time she came to her climax upon him. He barely managed to hold off his own climax so long, and finished in fact perhaps a beat before she did, so that they shuddered through the aftermath more-or-less together, breathing hard and touching one another gently, given over to that small kind of flinch that arises after orgasm like the small shocks before sleep, perhaps marking one's transition between waking and dream.

Segundus stretched his arms out langourously, but was in no hurry to move her. He gazed up at her rather foolishly, feeling enormously happy and very comfortable. "That was lovely," he said. "I loved that. I—"

She kissed him very sweetly, lowering herself to lie curled beside him with her head upon his shoulder. "Yes," she agreed airily. "It was very lovely. I thought we were going to talk about spellwork. But then you showed up naked in my bed, and all thought of spells flew right out of my mind."

Segundus said dryly, "I do not believe _that_." He had a great deal of experience with what it means to be a magician.

"Well, _most_ thoughts of spells flew right out of my mind. Quite a few. Perhaps half my thoughts of spells. A few remain. Shall I teach you a spell now?"

"Oh, I would like that!'

"All right. Hmm. Let me see." She drummed her fingers thoughtfully upon his thigh, which sent a pleasant shiver through him. "A spell to banish dust from your house? A spell to make a star tell you all that it is seeing? A spell to cause someone to speak in sonnets?"

Segundus was quite taken by the idea of causing Childermass to speak in sonnets, and for a moment he strongly considered it. However, he had a feeling that Childermass would not care to be enchanted, so with some regret he said, "Perhaps the first. It seems very practical."

"It is! But very complicated, because it involves every object in the house— every object past, present, and future. You must account for all of them." Miss Absalom launched into a long, complicated, and interesting theoretical explanation. It had to do with webs of obligation, which she called liege-cloths, for she was in the habit of picturing magic as weaving. Segundus thought a little drowsily that Childermass would be interested in this, and that he might see a way to use it upon the roof, which was prone to leaking in various places when rainstorms came.

He had just asked Miss Absalom what he thought was a fascinating question about obligations between the past the present when he had the strange sense that a bird was whistling directly into his ear, though there did not seem to be such a bird in the dream. He frowned and shook his head, but the birdsong was not silenced.

"Oh, bother," he said vaguely. "It is going to wake me up!"

Miss Absalom made a noise of complaint and nuzzled against him, stretching a leg across his body. "How inconvenient! I was almost going to propose that we go again!"

Segundus groaned aloud, for now he very much wanted this to happen. Her small hand was wandering towards his prick, which had begun to rise at the thought of having her once more. "Tonight," he said desperately. "Come back tonight, will you, please?"

He did not receive her answer, for he woke then. A chorus of birds was singing in extremely shrill tones outside his window. He did not recall ever having heard such a racket before. He dressed in a very bad temper as the birds went on singing, and thudded down to the kitchen in search of some tea.

Childermass was there, eating ginger biscuits. He had piled the kitchen table with library books. He turned a very suspicious gaze on Segundus, eyes following him about the kitchen. "Why is there so much magic in this house at night?" he asked.

Segundus turned an innocent look on him. "I've no idea what you mean."

"I have noticed it before. At night, the house fills up with magic."

"Why are you creeping about my house at night, making such measurements?"

"I am not," Childermass said, "creeping about your house at night. I—"

"It is a disturbing habit, this creeping about; do you also stand outside my bedroom door?"

"I do not creep about your house! Nothing about your bedroom is the slightest bit interesting to me." Childermass affected to return his attention to his book, ignoring Segundus, though he appeared a little flustered.

Segundus set himself to brewing tea. "It is a very magical house," he said at length. "It was Miss Absalom's, after all. I dare say you are only sensing the house itself."

"Perhaps," Childermass allowed. But he did not seem convinced. Over the course of the morning, he directed a number of sceptical looks at Segundus, which grew more and more confounded throughout the day.


	4. Chapter 4

Indeed, a great many things confounded Childermass that day: the water spirit in the garden, which he viewed with frank and unfriendly disbelief— though the water spirit, in contrast, took to him at once, and further seemed somewhat besotted with him, and began to spout little fountains of water whenever he was nearby, a showiness for which Segundus rebuked it— and the flourishing rosebushes, and many other aspects of the garden, and the spell for ridding the house of dust, which Segundus was determined to try.

"Where did you learn such a spell?" Childermass asked with a dubious expression when Segundus had finished explaining this spell.

"Oh, in a book," Segundus said vaguely.

"Which book?"

"I do not recall exactly."

Childermass stared at him hard for a long time. "There are very few books of magic in this realm."

"And whose fault is that?" Segundus asked— precipitating a short heated argument on the topic, followed by a long and sullen silence.

Childermass trailed after him while he went from room to room in the house, setting the parametres of the spell. The nature of the magic required that Segundus make a number of marks upon each doorway, indicating that any object entering through it would become subject to the spell's law. Childermass seemed very interested in inspecting these marks, though Segundus was very concerned that he would disturb the chalk, and in consequence kept worriedly batting his hands away.

"Your spell implies an entire theory of magical alliances," Childermass observed as they were finishing a light lunch. "I did not know you had such a theory. Or was it contained in this mysterious book as well?" He raised a dark eyebrow and took a delicate sip of wine.

"It was," Segundus said cautiously, and proceeded to explain about liege-cloths, and sewing the rooms of the house together, and the importance of time as a substance in spells. He could see Childermass attempting not to be interested. It was like watching someone try not to fall asleep. Every so often Childermass's attention would wander and he would lapse into enthusiasm, which for him was a fierce, sharp-edged, and full-force kind of thing. Then he would recall that he had meant to be suspicious rather than interested, and he would go back to pretending to be disengaged. Segundus was quite amused by this deception. Childermass, he thought, had many considerable talents, but he was not very good at hiding his nature, and his nature was at root one of curiosity.

The conversation went on for quite a while. Childermass smoked two pipes during it. Segundus made a show of complaining about this, for he felt it did not do to encourage such habits indoors, but secretly he very much enjoyed the scent. It seemed to belong, in some indefinable way, to a home. This was very curious, for his family home had not smelled of tobacco; nor had he ever felt a strong attachment to that home. He did not know how one formed an idea of home. The process was wholly mysterious to him.

The sun had begun to set by the time they fell into silence. Late sunlight streamed through the high panes of the windows.

Childermass cleared his throat. "Well," he said. "I must beg your pardon for colonizing such a deal of your time."

"It has been my pleasure," Segundus said, and was surprised to find he meant it. "It is a delight to me to talk of magic with those who understand it; they are fewer than one would imagine, I find. However, I am aware that I may keep your from your own researches; in which case—"

"Not at all," Childermass said. He had said it a little too quickly, and seemed to realize it. "But your own researches—"

"What a pair of retired old gentlemen we sound," Segundus said wryly. "Soon we shall sit at our writing desks all day, penning vituperative letters to the editors of scholarly publications."

Childermass assumed a rather guilty expression.

"I too," Segundus admitted shamefacedly. "The _Ivy and Sceptre_ , after last April's debacle. Not one of which they have so far chosen to print. I believe they view me rather as a nuisance."

"They are the poorer for it," said Childermass.

It was such an unexpectedly kind comment that Segundus flushed. "Well," he said, "they are all London magicians. I have quite affiliated myself with the country. There is a divide."

Childermass made a dismissive sound. "Magic comes from the North," he said. "It does not come from London, nor from gentlemen in nice houses."

"No," Segundus said. "I suppose that is true. I do not find them all that interesting, either, I must confess."

"No," Childermass said.

They looked at each other. This time it was Segundus who cleared his throat.

"I was," he said, "thinking of adapting the spell I previously described. There are a number of leaks in the roof. I do not think you have observed them. You have not been here during a very hard rain. But the question of additions to the house is a queer one; that is, of _structural_ additions, and so I wonder if you might offer your input..."

Childermass was very happy to offer his input. They walked about Starecross inspecting various elements of the ceiling, sticking their fingers into niches and nooks, and getting altogether covered in dust and plaster. Once, Segundus accidentally put his hand through a wall that turned out to be little more than paint and sawdust.

"It is like restoring the hall all over again!" he complained. "I thought I would only have to do it once. I come to find it is more like gardening than I expected."

"But you do not mind gardening," Childermass said gravely. He had laughed when Segundus put his hand through the wall, and been reprimanded, and now affected an air of mock-solemnity.

"I suppose I do not." Segundus frowned, and squinted at a spiderweb in the corner of a hallway. "One never seems to achieve very much. But then perhaps achievement is a young man's game."

"Hark at you," Childermass said dryly. "The Old Man of the Mountain."

Segundus waved a dusting cloth at him, which made him sneeze.

That night, after the oddly peaceful evening had concluded and he had seen Childermass off to bed, Segundus retired with a certain amount of anticipation. Not only did he have a great deal to discuss with Miss Absalom, he felt, but he had not at all forgotten what he had postponed.

And, indeed, she was waiting for him, clad in a Chinese silk robe the colour of spring moss and stretched out on the bed. Segundus began shedding clothes as soon as he saw her, which resulted in his hopping awkwardly for a moment as he pulled off his stockings, and then in his half-tumbling forwards onto the sheets as he stripped his shirt off. He did not very much mind this, as they were both laughing, and then he was pressing her down and kissing her, and then she was tumbling him over and kissing him, her hair falling in a ripe and jasmine-scented curtain, her mouth tasting faintly of rosewater.

"You owe me," she said, smiling breathlessly against his mouth. "How will you repay me for your desertion?"

"Mm," he said contentedly, pushing the robe off her shoulders. "I think you shall have to take whatever payment you like from me."

Miss Absalom seemed to find this amenable, for she kissed him again.

Then all at once she pulled back and cocked her head as though she listening to something— a noise that Segundus could not hear. Her face grew very exasperated. "What a nuisance—!" she said. She made a sharp gesture with one hand, and abruptly they were both wearing clothing— a state that Segundus did not very much wish to be in— though her own clothing consisted of the Chinese silk robe, now belted, and some very expensive items of jewellery— notably ruby earrings that had the appearance of blood-drops, and a ferocious amber dragon pendant fully as big as Segundus's hand.

"What—?" Segundus protested. He might have protested more, but he was rather awed by the sight of her in this regalia.

Miss Absalom tossed her hair behind her shoulders and flung herself back beside him on the bed. "There," she said, and snapped her fingers at the ceiling.

Childermass crashed spectacularly out of it.

It was not a very dignified position for a man to be in. The house being a dream-house, one might have supposed there was not much to it in the way of construction, but— perhaps because Miss Absalom was extraordinarily irritated— Childermass was covered in grey dust to the point of being ghost-like and spitting plaster-chips out of his mouth nevertheless. He was also sprawled on the bedroom floor looking thoroughly dumbfounded.

"Childermass?" Segundus demanded, outraged, just as Miss Absalom said, "John Childermass!"

Childermass's gaze flickered from one to the other. His forehead creased as though he were attempting to absorb some difficult notion. "In my defense," he said at last, "before you begin, I had no notion that I was intruding upon a lady's boudoir. Nor, mi..."— he appeared to mentally run through the range of options— "...ss, have I had the pleasure, so far as I know."

"You certainly have not," Miss Absalom said very scornfully. She was capable, as it turned out, of a blisteringly high degree of scorn. Segundus was quite impressed, and a little frightened. "My name is Maria Absalom, and you, sir, are trespassing in my house."

"And in my dream!" Segundus said. He did not wish his indignation to be overlooked. What right had Childermass to be in his dream? It was the most intimate of violations!

"Yes," Childermass said. "That part I knew." He did not look very apologetic.

"You _knew_?" Segundus said, aghast.

Childermass shrugged. "You would not be honest about the matter. I thought something was amiss." He blinked at Miss Absalom. "I perceive now it would have been a trifle difficult to explain."

Miss Absalom said fiercely, "What right do you think you have to any explanation?"

Childermass was silent for a moment. "None, I suppose," he said. His face and voice had both grown very composed. He stood, and, brushing more plaster off his sleeves, he made a little bow. "I beg your pardon," he said to Miss Absalom. "I am sorry to have intruded." To Segundus, he said: "I will go."

Something about the way he said this made Segundus realize that he did not mean he would leave the dream. He meant he would go. A strange, blind surge of panic rose up within him. He did not wholly understand it. He stared at Childermass. He felt tremendously angry, and hurt, and as though something very small and nascent— a damp baby bird or a vulnerable crocus— had been stamped out ruthlessly. Most of all, he felt very unhappy.

Miss Absalom was looking between Segundus and Childermass with an air of bewilderment. "... Oh!" she said suddenly, at last.

Childermass was turning to go.

"Why did you not say so?" Miss Absalom demanded of Segundus. She had turned an accusatory stare on him.

"Say what?" Segundus was very honestly befuddled, and also inexplicably forlorn.

"That you wanted him! It is very convenient that he wants you as well. We could have arranged it ages ago."

Segundus felt even more befuddled. "I don't..." he said. "But he... does he? Do I?" He gazed helplessly at her.

"Oh, _honestly_ ," Miss Absalom said. "You cause me to recall why I never married. No," she said to Childermass, turning sharply towards him as he rounded the doorway, "I rather think that for the time being you'd better stay here."

Childermass slunk back into the room, looking distinctly unexcited. "You are wrong," he said to Miss Absalom. "And it is better that I go."

Miss Absalom sighed irritably. "Do not lie to me; you only further your disrespect. It is in your face whenever you look at him."

"That is not what I meant."

She blinked. "Well, of course _he_ does; I cannot think why I did not see it before."

Childermass said, "But you—" He gestured.

"I am not proposing to give him up!" She laughed incredulously. "Certainly not! Would you?"

Childermass's eyes flickered to Segundus. "No," he conceded.

Segundus covered his face with his hands. "I am not a valise!" he complained. He thought he was probably flushing rather red. "Why must you talk about me as though I am not here?"

Childermass shrugged. "You did not seem to be saying very much."

"That is because I do not understand!" Segundus could not keep his voice from rising. He sounded, he thought, sad and petulant, which was not how he wanted to sound, but was perhaps a fair representation of his heart. He had never felt so—

Childermass kissed him.

This was so astonishing an act that for a moment Segundus was not quite sure what to do. He floundered. It was a very appealing kiss. It tasted slightly of tobacco and slightly of Segundus's apple wine, which they had shared by the fireside before going to bed. They had been arguing about the extent to which a London magician could be said to truly understand English magic, and whether it were necessary for such a person to seek out a sort of baptism in the North in order to cleanse himself of his London-ness. It had not been a terribly serious conversation. Segundus had confessed to the shame of coming from Oxfordshire. "But," he'd said with a wry smile, "perhaps my soul was always of the North." Childermass had not returned his smile. "Perhaps there is a bit of the North where-ever there are souls such as yours," he'd said. It had been such an oddly solemn comment. Like a love letter, Segundus thought. Like something you would write in a love letter.

 _Oh,_ he thought.

He kissed Childermass back— a little tentatively at first. He did not feel he quite knew what he was doing yet. He had a great sense that he did not want to break what he was holding, although he was holding nothing. And then he was holding Childermass in his hands, touching his hands very carefully to Childermass's face. And then suddenly he did not feel very tentative at all. He did not know what he was doing, but he knew— he thought— what he wanted.

He set his hands at Childermass's waist and pushed eagerly forwards against his mouth, working it open even as he tugged Childermass's shirttails loose to get hands underneath them and onto his bare skin. Childermass himself, having precipitated the kiss, seemed quite unsure what he was meant to do next. He was standing very still with his hands in Segundus's hair. When Segundus skimmed his fingertips up his chest he made a sighing sound, and when those same fingertips scraped his nipples he gasped. Segundus rubbed up against him langourously with his whole body, allowing Childermass to feel that he was growing hard for him, and licked his way into Childermass's mouth in a very suggestive fashion.

Childermass said, sounding dazed, "I thought you would be—"

"Virginal?" Miss Absalom suggested. She was lying across the bed, watching them with what appeared to be intense enjoyment.

"Yes. No. I do not..."

"Am I not what you wanted," Segundus said, half in jest. He could not conceal the faint uncertainty in his voice, so different to the confidence of his hands. He had, he thought, slightly wanted to show off for Childermass and produce exactly this reaction: _how skilled you are, how talented, how good you make me feel._ Perhaps this was disingenuous of him. But he did want to make Childermass feel good. He had a great many tangled-up wants when it came to Childermass: he wanted to force Childermass into abandoning his pretense at stone-facedness and reveal the soft curious wondering person who lay inside, whom Segundus had been so lucky as to glimpse here and there. He wanted to make Childermass laugh, which fractured that stone-facedness. He wanted to see Childermass thrash in the grip of pleasure. Oh, that image opened a dozen more doorways: Childermass arching up from a disarrayed bed, Childermass tossing his head back and moaning, Childermass with his wrists bound to the bed...

"You are daydreaming," Childermass said. He sounded amused. He touched Segundus's face with a tender hand. "I want you, virgin or wanton. I have spent a great deal of time wanting you. I have thought in considerable detail of how I would want you."

"I was daydreaming about how i want you," Segundus confessed.

Childermass looked extremely interested in this topic. And Childermass's interest, as Segundus had so many times observed, was fast and forceful and full of sharp edges. It was one of the things about Childermass that he found most attractive, that overwhelming interest. "What conclusions did you draw?" Childermass said. He smiled slightly, as though he could see the effect he was having.

Segundus moved a little closer and slid his hands down Childermass's back, past the waist, to where his buttock began to slope. "That I would like to pleasure you," he said. "If it is agreeable to the lady, with whom I have a certain understanding."

"It is very agreeable to the lady," Miss Absalom said. "I find the idea of such a thing delicious. Only I wish to have you after, as I am yet unfulfilled."

"Is that all right?" Segundus asked. He risked a look up at Childermass's eyes. "I know it is not... conventional. You are free to watch us. You are free to watch us now, if you prefer." The thought of Childermass watching as he took Miss Absalom— as she rode him, perhaps, touching herself as she displayed where his prick pushed inside her— was very appealing, to say the least.

Childermass said, "I have resisted for a long time the urge to touch you. I do not think I should like to give the chance up now." He let his hands rest at Segundus's waist.

"The chance will not disappear at daybreak." Segundus did not know how to explain to Childermass that he felt in his own heart the gentleness that he saw in Childermass's face, which promised affection but also more, and which asked very humbly not to be betrayed. Because he did not know how to explain, he touched Childermass instead, drawing him forwards carefully and lifting his shirt off, then kissing all the parts of him in a long line descending from throat to hip-bone. Childermass did not make much sound, but rested his arms around Segundus lightly, as though very tentatively enclosing him.

"Oh," he said when Segundus reached for his breeches buttons.

"Perhaps," Segundus suggested, "you might sit on the bed. '

Childermass looked at the bed. He looked at Miss Absalom, who was angled so as to occupy a great deal of it. She looked at him in return rather curiously.

"You do not need to be afraid of me," she said— kindly, Segundus thought, and with no hint of condescension.

Childermass seemed yet uncertain of this, but he sat on the bed and allowed Segundus to remove his breeches and stockings. Segundus, kneeling, could not help doing as had previously been done to him, and lingering in all the unexpected places of the body: the ankles, the knees, the turn of the hips. Childermass's body was so different to Miss Absalom's, thin where she was soft and lavish, all hard angles where she was welcoming, rounded. The differences fascinated Segundus. Childermass's prick fascinated him— such a statement of want where it stood out from his body, and a kind of barometer of pleasure in the way it twitched and hardened. Segundus cupped it lightly and felt it respond. He licked it, and it responded again. He lowered his mouth very deliberately onto it, and heard a double intake of breath.

He did not look up, but sucked slowly and consideringly, pulling off to tongue with fascination at the glossy head, then lowering his mouth once more. He found the act not perhaps as interesting as he might have liked; it was very repetitious, and he could not fit all of Childermass into his mouth. He gagged a little when he tried to take him deeply in, and though this produced further gasps from Childermass and Miss Absalom, almost but not quite in unison, it was not very enjoyable. So he pulled off once more and instead moved lower and wetly licked at Childermass's scrotum, then the skin beyond and his taut entrance.

It was at this point that Childermass, breathing hard, brought a hand up to his hair. Segundus felt a little triumphant. He licked hard at that strip of skin, which made Childermass's hand twitch, and then set himself to exploring that entrance. He recalled the bright sensations that Miss Absalom had evoked in this location, a heat that had built all under his skin, but that at the same time had reminded him a little of champagne, the way the bubbles like stars burst all through it. This was what he wanted to give to Childermass. So he applied himself to opening that flesh with his tongue, both caressing and subtly pushing at it.

Childermass said in a hazy voice, "Oh, my God." His hand went very heavy on Segundus's head.

"He has a very gifted tongue," Miss Absalom agreed from behind him. Her own tone was somewhat breathless. "Isn't he beautiful when he wants to give you pleasure? When he loses himself in it?"

Segundus could not decide if he ought to be indignant about this description. But he could not very well respond to it. Instead he began thrusting his tongue in sharp, pointing little flickers, which made Childermass cry out and push forwards to him. Segundus rewarded him by pushing a finger in as well, being very firm and gentle with it. He pulled back to enjoy the spectacle of Childermass taking his finger. Above him, Childermass looked rather wrecked— the colour was high in his face, and he was staring at Segundus with dumb wonder. Segundus moved his finger in and out and Childermass bit his lip; harder, deeper, and Childermass made a dark sound.

"You like that," Segundus said in a low voice that he almost did not recognize. He was amazed by how it affected him, the knowledge that he could undo Childermass with pleasure. He bent his head and licked at the wet tip of Childermass's prick, just to see what result it would have. Childermass's hand clenched in the bedclothes. His prick was very heavy and very stiff; he was probably at the stage where he ached for climax.

Segundus pressed another finger in. He felt the tight flesh quiver and yield slightly around him. "Would you like me to take you?" he wondered, more as an idle thought. "Do you like being penetrated?"

"That is not fair!" Miss Absalom interjected. "I wish for you to take _me!_ "

She was touching herself as she watched, her robe now open and two slick fingers making lazy circles between her legs.

Segundus said, "You have had me numerous times already."

"But I like to feel your prick inside me— pressing inside me very solid and deep..."

Childermass made a choked kind of sound. The top of his prick dripped.

"You like _that_ as well," Segundus said curiously. "So you _do_ want to watch."

"I," Childermass said. He appeared to be struggling for words. He closed his eyes. "I want everything of you. I wish to see you take your pleasure; I want to see your face when..."

Segundus had to close his own eyes. He rested his hot face against Childermass's leg. He said helplessly, "You may have what you want. Only I do not know how to satisfy both of you."

Childermass seemed to consider the matter, stroking gently against Segundus's hair, occasionally sighing heavily when Segundus did something clever with his hand. "Give her her pleasure," he said at last, "and then let me have mine. Can you do that? Will you last?"

"... I will try," Segundus said. He kissed Childermass's thigh. "You are very generous."

"There is nothing generous about it." Childermass showed a flicker of a smile. "I have the sense I am about to be given a show."

Miss Absalom laughed aloud at that, but she did not deny it. She beckoned to Segundus. "Come," she said. "Shall we be dramatic?"

So Segundus disattached himself from Childermass and removed his clothing with great haste. No sooner had he embraced Miss Absalom, greeting her with kisses, then she was pressing him down flat on the bed, and easing herself down onto his prick. He groaned at the feeling of it, for he had grown very hard while pleasuring Childermass, and the interior of her was unbearably delightful. But she was moving hardly at all, instead keeping him wholly inside her, which was hard for him to stand.

"Look," she said to Childermass— as though he were not looking. To Segundus, he seemed utterly transfixed. His hand was around the base of his prick.

But here was what Miss Absalom had meant: she opened the folds of herself so Childermass could clearly see where she was stretched around Segundus's prick, then rose very slowly and lowered herself once more, displaying every inch of the slide of him into her, showing Childermass how deep he went.

"Jesus Christ," Childermass said hoarsely. His hand moved very fast on his prick.

Miss Absalom repeated the motion, this time moaning very loudly as she sank down upon him. "He feels so good," she said, "keeping me so full— come here, come touch and see."

Childermass hesitated fractionally before obeying the injunction. His hand was trembling when he raised it to where they were joined. He touched the slick flesh of Segundus's prick, stroking just a fingertip against it. It was enough to make Segundus cry out loudly and thrust helplessly upwards for a moment. The sensation of that fingertip, when he was already buried inside of Miss Absalom, being gripped hot and wet!

"Go on," Miss Absalom said. "Feel. More. Put your finger inside me."

And Childermass did as she said. He let his fingertip probe at where Miss Absalom was stretched tight, and after a few tries— a few sharp bitten-off cries from Segundus— it pushed very tightly within, hard against Segundus's prick and rubbing at it slightly.

Segundus's breath sobbed in his throat. "Oh God," he said. "Oh my God."

Miss Absalom herself was breathing hard. She was working at herself now with her hand as she rode them both in slow, rapturous movements. It was not easy for her to take them both in, and every time she did so anew Segundus felt a sound ripped from him. He was amazed that he had not climaxed already, and he could only think that it was too much: the feel of her, impossibly taut, impossibly wet, and the look of almost-agony on her face as she laboured frantically towards her climax, and the feel of Childermass touching him— touching him _inside her_ , his face awed and eyes gone almost black with the concentration of desire.

"I can't—" he said, and then: "I can't, I'm going to—"

"Not yet," Childermass said, and kissed him, which at least distracted him from the unendurably exciting spectacle, so that— though he suspected he sank his teeth very hard in Childermass's lip— he did not finish when he felt Miss Absalom climax around him. It was a near thing. There were not words for the feeling of it.

Childermass slipped his finger out of her as she panted atop Segundus. It was glistening with her wetness. He touched it to Segundus's lip and Segundus let it penetrate his mouth, sucking the taste of Miss Absalom off of it. He saw Childermass's breath shudder as he did so, Childermass's eyes drawn magnetically towards his lips. He released the finger with a filthy wet sound.

"Please," he said. "Please, I'm so close, tell me what you— what you want; I want to give you anything you want, anything—"

Childermass kissed him again. It was a long, slightly aggressive kiss. It was sweet, lingering, hungry, but with a hint of violence. "You will wait," he said, "to give me what I want. Won't you?"

"Oh," Segundus breathed out. Then: " _Oh!_ " as Miss Absalom shifted off him. He had to close his eyes and dig his fingers into the bedsheets so as to not touch himself, so acute was his desire for release.

Cool fingers settled on his brow, in his hair. He could smell Miss Absalom, a certain post-coital aroma she had, like late sunshine and overripe lilies, the end of summer, tinged with a touch of human sweat. He turned his head towards her blindly.

"Shh," she said. "Shh. I know how good you can be for him. You want to be very good, don't you?"

"Yes. Yes." A hand touched his prick and he cried out, hips arching upwards.

Miss Absalom tugged his hair sharply. A flash of pain. He moaned. She said, "Not yet."

But Childermass was— Segundus opened his eyes hazily and saw Childermass kneeling over him, gazing at him with almost animal desire, reaching— and then—

Segundus's prick pushed just into the clenched hole of his body. The precise star of muscle where he had previously licked, the softest, hottest, most delicate skin. This was what Childermass was giving to him: his most delicate part, to hold him and enclose him, to force him with its fist-like grip towards completion. The weight of Childermass pinned him to the bed, and Segundus reached up for him blindly, grasping him at odd angles: putting hands wherever he could reach. The rounds of his knees. The curve of his hips. The hot flesh of his prick. Childermass moved, rocking on him, taking him deep in his body, and Segundus made a punched-out noise.

Miss Absalom knotted her hand in his hair and pulled once more, jerking his head towards her. "Not yet," she said. "Not yet."

Segundus wanted to explain that he did not want to come yet, that he wanted to stay inside Childermass forever, pleasing him, fucking him; that he wanted to stare at Childermass exactly as he was now: kneeling as though in prayer with his dark hair in his face, naked and soft-eyed, and with Segundus's prick sliding into him, the most obscene and the most beautiful sight Segundus could imagine. He wanted to explain that he did not want to, but that he did not know how to not do it, with Childermass's body against his body and Miss Absalom's hand in his hair. But he could not manage to say it. He could only moan in fits and starts as Childermass moved on him. He entirely lost track of the world but for the hot plunge of flesh into flesh, and from time to time the sharp pain of Miss Absalom reining him in, forcing him back from the edge. He was aware of Childermass working himself fast, his breath stuttering in huffs, and Childermass's eyes burning down at him, and he said something inarticulable— the sort of thing you can only say in dreams, because if you said it in the waking world it would not make any sense. Then he was crying out and climaxing unstoppably.

Childermass continued riding him for a few long moments before giving a sort of startled sigh and opening his eyes very wide and shoving down hard and spending himself on Segundus's chest.

Childermass was still moving softly. Segundus was still holding onto his hips. He felt a great sense of peace that he had not known before. He raised his hand and Childermass caught hold of it, and they stared at each other, shivering a little.

Miss Absalom yawned and stretched and pulled Segundus to her, making room for Childermass on the other side of him. Childermass eased himself off of Segundus and into that space. Segundus, caught between them like a pearl cradled between two rough oyster halves, sighed comfortably and drew them both closer. Their bodies were warm. He pressed his face to Childermass's shoulder and felt Miss Absalom mold herself against his back. She stroked his arm. Childermass ran a hand through his hair, then let his palm rest at the back of Segundus's neck.

"Mm," Segundus said drowsily, wriggling slightly in satisfaction. "I could sleep like this. Only I do not wish to sleep, for I am already asleep, and I wish to stay here."

There was a short silence. Childermass said, "Your logic remains as dubious as ever."

"You are mistaken," Segundus informed him. "But I will permit you to remain in my bed, because I am a generous person."

"It is _my_ bed," Miss Absalom said. "But I suppose I do not mind if both of you stay."

"That is gracious of you," Segundus said gravely.

Childermass appeared close to sleep, which was very endearing. His hand had grown heavy on Segundus's neck. When Segundus risked a glance up, his eyes were drifting closed. He did not go to sleep, though; he wrinkled his nose and said vaguely, "What is that noise?"

Segundus made a questioning sound, a sort of _mmph?_

"That— noise, that bird noise. You must hear it."

"No," Segundus said, by which he did not mean, _No, I do not hear it_ , for he could hear it now, if only faintly— like birds from a very long way off, possibly miles— but rather a more general refusal to acknowledge the interruption. He buried himself further into Childermass's shoulder, tugging Miss Absalom's arm tightly around him. "No," he said again, for emphasis.

Miss Absalom muttered something exasperated-sounding against his back. Segundus was about to ask her if she could quiet the birds, for they seemed to be drawing closer and he wished to rest, but even as he thought this he became aware that the noise would wake him. He clung to the last vestiges of the dream with drowsy hands— the feel of Miss Absalom's breath warm against his shoulder, Childermass's soft prick pressed against his leg, the faint smell of sex, damp and overripe and fecund, a lazy, salacious, flowering scent... but it was no use. Sleep was unspooling him from himself, and before he knew it, he was waking in his own bed.


	5. Chapter 5

Segundus opened his eyes. Birds were singing loudly. They did not sound as sweet as birds were supposed to. He thought that they sounded rather bad-tempered. He frowned vaguely in the direction of them, sitting up and scrubbing at his eyes. For a moment he felt caught between waking and dreaming. He was very surprised to be alone in his bed. It was a shock, as though he had been plunged into cold water. A moment ago he had been comfortably squashed between those warm and lazy bodies, and now—

Now, as he gazed around his spare, neat, quiet, unassuming bedroom, with its stacks of books and its scholarly air and the small marks of genteel poverty, he felt a sudden surge of panic that the dream had not been real. For the man who lived in this room, he thought, with his meek and half-rate mind, with his turned sleeves, with his pedantic annotations, such a dream could only ever be a dream. To even think that one of the great Argentine magicians— to think that _Childermass_ , who, with his dark looks and brooding disposition, was very like a poetic hero from a book, and who in addition was proud and learned and mysterious and sarcastic— it was quite absurd! It was quite piteously foolish! He imagined Childermass's expression: the arch disbelief, the faint hint of scorn. _You?_ his imaginary Childermass said.

A sense of bitter shame and disappointment overwhelmed him for a moment. He buried his face in his hands. It was real, he thought, and yet it could not have been real, and he stewed in an unhappy muddle for quite a long while, paralyzed by fear and longing and other things he could not name.

There was a knock at the door.

Segundus was frozen by it. For the length of a quite a long pause, he did not respond. Then: "Yes?" he ventured in a very small voice.

The doorknob turned, and the door opened minutely. Here too there was a long pause, though Segundus could not read the hesitation. At last Childermass slipped into the room. He was in his shirtsleeves, looking extremely rumpled, as though he had just crawled out of bed. But then Childermass always looked extremely rumpled.

They did not look at one another. There was an uncomfortable silence. Childermass stared at the floor. Segundus twisted his hands in the bedcovers.

Eventually Childermass said, "You appear to have angered your dunnocks."

Segundus had to think about this for quite a while to understand it. "... Is a dunnock a type of bird?"

"Yes. They are not usually so vocal."

"Oh," Segundus said. He picked nervously at a loose bit of thread. He could not help feeling that in a moment something horrible would happen. He was tempted to forestall it by fleeing the room. Indeed, had he not been in his nightshirt, he might have done so.

"So," Childermass said. He shifted from foot to foot. Segundus caught him darting a glance upwards— a covert glance, oddly uncertain. "I do not suppose that—"

"Yes?" Segundus said very quickly.

"That is to say..." He fidgeted further. He said with difficulty, "I dreamt about you."

"Yes," Segundus said. He had meant this to mean: _continue_. But he could not say it without putting his longing into it, so that it came out meaning something else altogether: _yes, yes, it was real; yes, I want—_

He raised his gaze to Childermass. For a moment their eyes met. Segundus felt a tangible, physical jolt, a sense of something electric falling into place. He had meant to look down again, but found he could not.

"It was not a dream," Childermass said softly. His eyes were soft, too. Though they were still very guarded, Segundus could glimpse the shadow of that bare wondering self beyond them, the self that he most wanted to draw out towards him. He saw that he would have to be the braver of them, that he had— perhaps— less to lose than did Childermass.

Segundus said, "It was a dream, but it was a dream I shared. That is, I believe we shared it. I am in the habit of sharing dreams."

Childermass said rather wryly, "I am becoming aware."

Segundus flushed. "I hope the dream was... I mean to say, I hope you did not find it unpleasant. I know in sleep we are sometimes not who we would choose to be. I wholly understand if you feel, now you have woken, that you should not have... or that you do not wish..."

In answer, Childermass crossed the room. He stood beside Segundus's bed and regarded him with a mixture of ferocity and fondness. "Did you truly think that I would cast you off so soon?"

"I do not know," Segundus confessed. "I hardly know what to think." He looked down at his hands clenched upon the coverlet. "It is rather disconsolate to wake, after I have been dreaming, and find myself alone in my bed. It casts one into low and questioning spirits."

"Well," Childermass said, "there is a remedy for that." And he lifted up the bedclothes, just as though he had been invited, and— casting a careful glance at Segundus— climbed beneath them.

Segundus thought that perhaps he should have been piqued by this. Childermass was always going where he had not been asked to go. But at the same time he seemed always to be where he was wanted, before he knew that he was wanted, before even Segundus knew it, as though he possessed a cryptic map of Segundus's desires, as though he were following this map, though he could not quite read it.

Segundus lay down beside him and drew him close. It was the first time he had ever held anyone in this bed. It was not so different from holding someone in a dream, yet all the same he felt very glad. Childermass's skin was still warm from sleep, and as Segundus curled against him, resting his head on his chest, he made a vague contented sound that was half a sigh.

"I was afraid that I had invented it," Segundus murmured. "—The dream."

"You have a high opinion of your imagination," Childermass said.

Segundus smiled soundlessly against him. "It was rather good, wasn't it?"

Childermass said grudgingly, "It was not bad, I suppose."

Segundus made an indignant sound.

"It could not have been bad. You had given me what I wanted. Just by being..."

"Oh," Segundus said. He held Childermass closer. "I did not know. But I am glad."

Glad: that was how to describe the emotion, the current of contentment running through him. It made him feel light and heavy at the same time; drowsy, but also buoyed up by happiness. He could have fallen asleep like that, and he would have been pleasant to do so and wake in Childermass's arms. Indeed he could think of nothing that he would like better. Only— the crescendo of birdsong had swelled again by the window. It was unpleasantly raucous, and did not permit sleep.

Chlldermass groaned. "Do we know a spell to make them quiet?"

Segundus was rather pleased by this first-person plural, implying, as it did, a certain shared and permeable knowledge that lay between them. He said, "It requires pledging them an object."

"I am going to pledge them a shoe in a minute."

"You are not wearing shoes, and you may not hurl mine out the window."

"How severely you restrict me," Childermass said. But he did not sound unhappy. He sounded a little sleepy.

Segundus said, "We shall have to ask Miss Absalom, the next time we see her. She comes and goes as she likes; I do not summon her. Or I should say I have never tried."

"No," Childermass said. "I am sure you have not." There was something amused and fond and frustrated in his voice. "However, I will hazard the opinion that she would not at all mind it. Indeed, she might well be pleased if you took such an action. It is more exhausting than you realize, winning attention from you."

Segundus did not know what to say to this. He felt rather chastised. "I do not think of it as a prize, you see," he said.

"But it is."

"I suppose I must owe you rather a backlog of attention, by your lights."

"Mm."

Segundus, feeling rather daring, gently pushed Childermass back against the bed and pinned him down, nuzzling against his neck. "Since we cannot sleep," he said, "I might use the time to discharge my debts."

Childermass enthusiastically demurred to object to this. In the end, it was another hour before they left the bedroom, and even then only because they had grown very hungry.

They thudded downstairs rumpled and barefoot, in their shirtsleeves and smiling foolishly at one another. Or rather, Segundus found his own smile foolish. Childermass's smile, he thought, was rare and solemn, like a night flower— something you had to be careful and patient to see. Even at its most giddy, it was like that. He caught himself watching that smile with too much intensity. How had he never noticed? he wondered. Or perhaps all along he had known, at some secret level. All along he had resisted the impulse to cultivate that smile, fearing to want what was beyond his reach.

Childermass said over a slice of Madeira cake, "You are staring at me like a bird intent upon stealing my breadcrumbs."

Startled, Segundus laughed. "I am _what?_ "

"You have even tilted your head in the self-same way. Now you are fluffing your feathers in indignation."

"I am not fluffing my feathers! I do not have any feathers!"

"Happiness suits you, I think," Childermass said unexpectedly. Then he looked away, abashed, his cheeks faintly coloured.

Segundus touched his hand. The kitchen was full of sunlight. The house itself seemed obscurely happy. The branches of the wild pear tapped gently on the window. Doves were calling, low and peaceful and sweet, and there were other bright chortled sounds of birdsong; a hint of magic, in everything growing— not precisely music, in the way that magic was never precisely music, but not precisely any other thing, like a mixture of music and aroma and the vision of something that you could never quite, quite see. It was in the stones of the house and the dust motes in the air and in Childermass linking their hands together, leaning back in his chair, saying nothing.

"Stay for the summer," Segundus said. He had not planned to say it.

"What, so you can put me to work in your garden?"

Segundus said, "Among other things."

Childermass did not answer at once. But he did not remove his hand from the table. After a while he said, "I could see my way to it, I suppose."

Segundus smiled, and he knew for certain his smile was now foolish. He did not mind terribly. "Good," he said. "Good."

* * *

Segundus thought a great deal about summoning Miss Absalom. He thought about it for the next four or five days— although he did not think about it so much as this might suggest, since he was in bed with Childermass for much of those days. Not purely engaged in carnal acts, though it was thoroughly delightful to learn from Childermass's body what pleased him. He thought that Childermass did not know a great deal about what pleased him. Childermass was different from Miss Absalom, as a lover, in most respects: quieter, less forward, somehow reticent in his motions. He was slow and careful and very intent, and looked at Segundus all the time with steady dark eyes, his gaze so heated that Segundus began to fear he might melt.

But just as often they were tangled in the bed linens, half-drowsing, talking about some crux in a line of a lost book of magic until one or both of them fell asleep; or lazing on the rug in the library, scouring magical journals for silence spells. (They had tried three so far on the recalcitrant birds, but none had appeared to have an effect.) Or— to much noise of complaining— Segundus dragged Childermass out to the garden, where he rudely declined to speak to the plants and instead stretched out in the sun, smoking his pipe, failing to look even a little unhappy with his situation.

Butterflies were much taken with him, for some reason, and determinedly followed him about in pale yellow clouds, attempting to land in his hair or on his sleeves. A number of snails investigated him with slow suspicion, and the water spirit burbled happily, and the roses posed a number of complicated questions about him to Segundus, which he was not sure he fully understood. Plants had quite a different way of seeing the world, flowers especially, and they seemed to have a great many vague thoughts about roots and blossoms.

"He is not going to put down roots," Segundus told them. "He is not a tree."

He had a clear sense the roses were miffed at him for this answer. He sighed. What extraordinary maintenance roses required! How woundable they were! (The eyebright and marjoram, from either side of the bushes, agreed.)

Meanwhile: "Have we any more of that Madeira cake?" Childermass enquired, wafting away a flurried snowstorm of butterfly wings.

" _We?_ " Segundus repeated. "I do not see what you have done to be hungry!"

Indeed, Childermass was the picture of idleness, with the cuffs of his sleeves rolled to his elbows, shading the sun from his eyes with one hand. At Segundus's words he acquired a lazy, vulpine look and said, "I can change that."

He made to pull Segundus down to him, but Segundus said, exasperated, "Not in the garden!"

So they relocated to the parlour instead, where it was cooler and shady, and where Childermass pushed Segundus gently against one floral wall before simply standing and staring hungrily at him.

Segundus said, his breath coming short, "Is this your idea of labour? I confess it seems sedentary to me, sir."

"Does it," Childermass said.

He drew closer. Still they were not touching. Segundus could feel the heat of him inches away, smell the hint of the sun, the garden's greenness. But Childermass only looked at him with those dark, dark eyes. It was a look that felt like being slowly drunk in.

When at last he touched Segundus, the touch was equally slow: a single hand laid against one side of his face, thumb stroking softly against his chin. Segundus pushed into it, wanting more. But:

"No," Childermass said. "Like this."

He slipped a hand into Segundus's breeches. At the first touch of fingers against his prick, Segundus gasped; he had been hard already. He leaned forwards, but Childermass held him back with the hand gripping his face and watched him intently— watched as Segundus breathed faster, as he flushed, as he twitched. Childermass stroked him unhurriedly. He paused at one point and withdrew his hand— Segundus made a complaining noise— and pressed it to Segundus's mouth. Segundus, after a brief hesitation, met his eyes and then licked the broad palm of it. They did not look away from one another. Segundus let his tongue slide between the fingers, mark out the little lines and dips where proximal phalanges became middle, became distal— he had an anatomical education— Childermass had beautiful hands— and then took the tip of a finger in his mouth, sucking hard.

Childermass took his hand away again, and returned it to its work. His own face was very flushed now. But he moved as carefully as he had before, coaxing Segundus towards louder sounds of pleasure, causing him to drop his head against the wall and clench his fists.

"Oh!" Segundus said, feeling the tension overtake him. His legs were trembling. "I, I, I cannot—" He expelled a huge gasp of breath. He could not focus, through the pleasure, on staying upright. He thought his legs would collapse like pliable reeds.

Still Childermass watched him with that same intensity of focus. It was that— the weight of the desire in his gaze— that made Segundus feel so hot and lightheaded. He pushed forwards into Childermass's hand, making choked noises with every slide against his palm. Childermass closed his hand more tightly, moistening his lips with his tongue. It was that, for some reason, that little motion, the flicker of tongue and the suggestion of hunger in it, that caused Segundus to spasm his hips and arch his back and climax. He spent himself into Childermass's hand.

He did collapse then, or rather slid down the wall, aware that his face must be blotchy with heat and his clothes were a mess. Childermass supported him, joining him on the carpet.

"You have done more for my appetite than your own!" Segundus accused, when at last he had got his breath back.

"Well," Childermass said, looking rather self-satisfied, "I should imagine you know how to remedy that."

And, indeed, Segundus did.

Afterwards, when he had finished using his much-praised mouth to drive Childermass out of nonchalance, and when they had stripped off their much-dirtied clothes, on which Segundus had insisted, and were eating cake and cheese and apples in bed, Segundus said, "I had thought of summoning Miss Absalom, using Mr Strange's spell."

Childermass looked at him very calmly, taking a bite of cheese.

"You do not," Segundus said, "that is— it would not upset you?"

Childermass gazed at an apple thoughtfully. "I should like to resolve the bird problem," he said. "Before I resort to baking them into a pie."

"You cannot cook. Or if you can, you have never revealed it."

"Why should I discourage you from feeding me?" Childermass said mildly. Then he continued: "No, it does not upset me. I should be most interested to speak with her. Though I imagine that speaking is not what you had in mind."

Segundus blushed. "That is not it at all!" he protested. "I enjoy Miss Absalom's company! She is a very delightful woman!"

"I'm sure she is," Childermass said, his eyebrows raised. He looked rather amused. "Truly, I do not mind it. She and I have complementary interests, I believe."

"Do you," Segundus said, a little warily.

"Mm." Childermass seemed pleased to be mysterious.

"Well," Segundus said, "I suppose we might just summon her to ask about the birds, and see where other things go from there."

So when they had dressed and put the bed in order, they employed Mr Strange's summoning spell— falling asleep curled comfortably around each other in the afternoon sunlight.

Segundus opened his eyes to find himself back in the garden. He was not, as he usually found himself when he dreamt of the garden, digging a hole. He was pruning an extraordinarily beautiful rosebush, clipping the little dead leaves off of it. It bore a number of remarkable flowers: some some crimson and some an ivory cream colour, others just barely blushed red. He felt extremely proud at the idea that he had grown such a rosebush, though he supposed that the rosebush itself really ought to be awarded the merit.

"You did a _bit_ of work," Miss Absalom said.

Segundus turned to see her smiling at him. She was in a leaf-green dress, one that gave her eyes a very vivid emerald sparkle.

"Hello!" he said to her. "You _did_ come when I called you."

She looked amused. "That is how the spell works, after all."

"You have not been put out of temper, I mean to say. I was not sure if you would be."

"Not at all! Being dead," she said, "is not like you suppose. I can guarantee it. One never runs short of time to do things, and one may quite often be in two places at once. The rules are very different. If I did not like you, I should find you a tiresome nuisance, I suppose. But in fact I like you."

"I am glad," Segundus said, a little shyly. Then he looked around. "But where is Childermass? We had intended to ask you a magical question— I do not know where he could have got to—"

The shutters of the kitchen window creaked open, and Childermass leant himself out of them. He was contemplatively eating a small iced cake with a bright pink spun sugar rose on it.

"You have just eaten!" Segundus said in exasperation.

"Your cakes do not have decorations," Childermass noted by way of explanation.

"Then you will not require me to bake you any more."

"I did not say that."

Miss Absalom had pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle her laughter. "Perhaps I ought to change the subject," she said. "What was your question?"

"Oh! We desire to silence a number of birds. They appear to harbour a vendetta. I cannot think why."

She frowned. "Have you asked them?"

"They are very angry," Segundus said doubtfully. "I do not think they would respond."

"One ought always to try that first. If they do not, I can think of a number of solutions. But come here, I have not even kissed you yet!"

He did, and she did: a sweet sharp peck accompanied by a very pleasant embrace. Segundus stroked a hand down the low silk back of her dress. She was so beautiful, he thought, like the summer to Childermass's winter, bright and dazzling where Childermass was darkly joyous. He had not known how he would feel upon seeing her again, and he was surprised at how happy he found himself.

Miss Absalom said over his shoulder, "And you, John Childermass? How is your reading going?"

Childermass said a little sulkily, "A man may have a holiday, may he not?"

She laughed. "Do not be concerned; I will keep your secret. So long as you do not vex me too much. You ought not to, anyway; after all, you are living in my house now."

Childermass looked subtly alarmed. "You are misinformed," he said. "I am merely staying for the summer."

"Are you," Miss Absalom said. But she chose not to comment any further on the matter.

"You do not mind?" Segundus asked. His life seemed to be full of these sorts of negotiations lately, trying to settle every person and object in their right place. It was all very complicated. But he felt somehow there was a pattern, if he could only work it out day by day. There was some way to get the little threads to weave together, so that the picture they formed was clear and complete, though he had the faintest sense that he would not quite ever see that picture— that he would go one forever grasping at it, seeing only the smallest, nearest pieces.

"Of course not!" Miss Absalom assured him. "It is your house as well. And we shall get along together."

"And you will still visit me? Because," he said, a little abashed by his honesty, "I would be very sorry to not see you anymore. You have brought me so much delight, and you have taught me so much, and—I should miss you if you were gone."

She looked at him with a great deal of fondness, and a tenderness he had not quite seen before— a very serious form of tenderness. "Dearest John," she said, "shall I ever make you believe in the joy that you bring to other people?"

"You may try," Childermass interjected. "He is very resistant to it."

"Well," Miss Absalom said, "it is real, and I prefer to keep it. Whether or not you choose to bring _him_ —" she gestured towards Childermass with a queenly dismissiveness, but also a hint of laughter— "is your prerogative. I suppose I can tolerate him."

"He is very bad-tempered," Segundus confided. "And he drinks the good wine. But he has his redeeming qualities."

Childermass rolled his eyes, but he was smiling crookedly.

Miss Absalom gazed affectionately at Segundus and kissed him on the cheek. "Go and settle with your birds," she told him. "All is well. I shall visit you when you have more time to sleep, and then—" her eyes flickered slowly along his body, sending a faint erotic jolt through him— "you may settle with me. At length."

Segundus felt his face burning. "I look forward to it," he said.

"Leave a bit of him for me," Childermass commented dryly.

Miss Absalom shot a naughty, flirtatious look at him. "Jealous, darling? Would you like your own arrangement?"

"No, he is mine!" Segundus objected. Then he flinched, realizing the unjustness of this. "That is—"

"You heard the man," Childermass said. He seemed unruffled. In fact, there was perhaps a flash of pleasure when he looked at Segundus, a hint of satisfaction. His eyes lingered. He said, "On that note, if you'll excuse us—"

Miss Absalom flapped her hands. "Oh, go along, if you're not going to let me watch. Go on! Off with you!"

So Childermass made a gesture with his hand, and all at once the dream began sinking around them, in the curious way that magical dreams did. Segundus was aware of a strong sense of Childermass's magic— dark, autumnal, and firelit, like sparks in the blue dusk— and then he was stirring, blinking, waking up in the bed.

He rolled over to find Childermass watching him with sleepy eyes. Childermass laid a heavy hand at the side of his head, and leaned in and kissed him very seriously and slowly. Segundus brought his arms up to pull Childermass towards him, and they lay there warmly tangled in each other's limbs, kissing to no particular purpose as twilight crept slowly across Yorkshire outside the window, and the chorus of outraged birds started up again.

* * *

EPILOGUE

 

Childermass frowned. "They say you are a dictator and a tyrant."

Segundus stared at him, then at the sullen-looking crowd of dunnocks that filled the branches of the hawthorn tree. The birds had refused to speak to him, and would communicate only with Childermass. But— "How have I oppressed them?" he wanted to know. "I have never acted against them! Indeed, I would not!"

"Well?" Childermass asked the dunnocks.

A great deal of indignant chirping followed, and some hopping and flapping-about of wings.

Childermass rolled his eyes. "They say the grouse over at some dismal farm or another informed them that you have been persecuting a group of cattle."

Segundus rubbed his temples, feeling the first stirring of a headache. "Those cattle had taken themselves off to Faerie without so much as a by-your-leave to the man who owned them! We have been over all this! I was clear that they should settle matters with the farmer!"

"Well," Childermass said, "it would appear they did not. It would appear that instead they have been blackening your name to half the county."

Segundus appealed to the dunnocks: "How may I correct your misapprehension? I am not a tyrant! I am the least tyrannical of men! I believe in liberty and the equality of all creatures!"

Childermass coughed. Segundus suspected he was laughing at him.

The dunnocks whistled, fixing their beady eyes on Segundus and hopping up and down energetically. They were really, Segundus thought mean-spiritedly, very unpleasant creatures. He ought to have let his raven chase them.

"They say they are willing to negotiate with the cattle," Childermass reported. "They will explain matters to the cattle— for a small fee."

"A fee?"

"Seedcake. They wish to be paid in seedcake."

Segundus levelled a suspicious gaze at Childermass. "I feel uncertain as to the accuracy of your interpretation, sir."

Childermass shrugged innocently. "I do not say I would reject seedcake, were it offered."

Segundus sighed heavily. "Oh, very well. To achieve some peace and quiet at last, I suppose that it is little enough to pay."

"Peace and quiet?" Childermass said. The corner of his mouth had curled in amusement. "Admit it! You would grow quite bored of such a thing, were you in fact to achieve it. You thrive on having problems to solve."

"I will certainly never lack for problems with you around," Segundus said, eyeing him severely.

"No," Childermass said with satisfaction. "You will not."

And he followed Segundus into the Starecross kitchen, slouching and chewing on his pipe-stem, with the air of a man who was very pleased to be exactly as much of a problem as Segundus could ever have wanted.

 

 


End file.
